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PREFACE. 



The series of books of which this is the second is designed 
rather to be a supplement to the encyclopaedias than to be of 
an encyclopedic character in itself. That is to say, it is the 
strange and out-of-the-way things usually left out of current 
works of reference which form the staple of this book, as of 
its predecessor. 

The book is largely a compilation. I have been greatly in- 
debted to the antiquarian writers who have gone before. 
Bourne, Brand, Hone, and Chambers have been placed under 
contribution. Thiselton Dyer's "British Popular Customs" 
(1891) and P. H. Ditchfield's " Old English Customs Extant at 
the Present Time" (1897) have proved especially valuable 
among the more modern authorities. To all these I cordially 
give my thanks. I must also call attention to that very re- 
markable French work by B. Picart, " Ceremonies et Coutumes 
religieuses de tons les Peuples" (1723), because it has furnished 
many of the most striking and unique of the illustrations to this 
book. 

A word about Barnaby Googe's translation of ^Naogeorgus, 
from which many excerpts have been made, will not prove out 
of place. Naogeorgus was the assumed name of Thomas Kirch- 
mayer, a German of the time of the Eeformation, whose " Popish 
Kingdom, or Eeign of Antichrist," was originally published in 
Latin. Googe's translation into English appeared in 1570. A 
new edition, by C. E. Hope, was published in 1880. The book, 
it must be remembered, though many antiquarians have failed 
so to remember, deals with the Germany and not the England 
of Catholic times. 

w. s. w. 



CURIOSITIES 

OF 

POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



Ab, Fast of, or Black Fast. The most mournful day in 
the Jewish calendar. It occurs on the ninth day of the fifth 
month, Ab, — a month which corresponds roughly with the end 
of July and the beginning of August. This is the anniversary 
of the two destructions of Jerusalem, the first by Nebuchad- 
nezzar, which resulted in the Babylonish Captivity, the second 
by Titus, when the Jewish nation was dispersed over the face 
of the earth. The fast is observed scrupulously from sunset of 
the eighth day of Ab until nightfall of the ninth. The syna- 
gogues are darkened so that the light of the sun cannot pene- 
trate within, only a few dim candles are lit, the ornaments are 
ail removed, and the ark is stripped of its curtain. The service 
consists of readings from the book of Lamentations, and dirges 
describing the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of 
its people, all conducted in a low and melancholy key. 

Adam's Peak, or Samanala, a holy mountain in Ceylon. 
According to Mohammedan legend, Adam after the fall was taken 
by an angel to the top of this mountain, whence a panorama of 
all the ills that should afflict mankind was unrolled before him. 
His foot left an impress on the solid rock which is still shown 
to visitors, while his tears formed the lake from which pilgrims 
still drink. The Buddhists have their own legend of the Sripada, 
or Sacred Footstep, according to which Buddha, ascending to 
heaven, left the impression where last he touched the earth on 
the highest point of Samanala. The Brahmins, the Moham- 
medans, and the Chinese have differing legends, and for more 
than two thousand years all have worshipped in their own way 
round the gigantic footprint. The latter is a flat rocky basin, 
five an^l m, quarter feet by two and a half feet, on the top of a 
huge b(jiildor, in which only a very active imagination, aided by 

7 



8 CURIOSITIES OF 

a lively faith, can see the likeness to a human foot. The boulder 
is covered with a wooden shrine of slender columns, which is 
open on all sides to the wild winds that rage there, and is shel- 
tered only by a roof with shady, overhanging eaves, from which 
hang down two ancient bells. Although the shrine oifers but 
slight resistance to the elements, the winds which blow and beat 
about that sacred summit are so strong and wild that it has to 
be secured in its place by great chains, which pass over it and 
are fastened to the living rock below. To perform a pilgrimage 
to this shrine and to lay an offering upon it is to a Buddhist 
what a visit to Mecca is to a Mohammedan. The favorite months 
are April and May, but all the year round a steady stream 
of devotees flows hither. The devotions of the pilgrims, who 
are usually clad in spotless white, consist of low bowings and 
prayers before Sripada, gifts of flowers and incense, burning of 
candles, ringing of small bells, and presents to the priests of rice 
and of gold and silver coins. Eags of old clothes are also consid- 
ered a worthy sacrifice, and the words " Sadu, Sadu," correspond- 
ing to our " Amen, Amen," are often repeated. Tradition asserts 
that the iron chains fastened to the walls of rock to give the pil- 
grims safety along the precipices were placed there by Alexander. 

Adam's Tomb. This is pointed out in a chamber of the 
church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Mark Twain's 
apostrophe at the tomb is one of the most famous bits in his 
"Innocents Abroad:" "The tomb of Adam! how touching it 
was, here in a land of strangers, far away from home and 
friends ! True, he was a blood-relation ; though a distant one, 
still a relation ! The unerring instinct of nature thrilled its 
recognition. The fountain of my filial afi'ection was stirred to 
its profoundest depths, and I gave way to tumultuous emotion. 
I leaned upon a pillar and burst into tears. I deem it no shame 
to have wept over the grave of my poor dead relative. Let him 
who would sneer at my emotion close this volume. Noble old 
man— he did not five to see his child ; and I — I — I, alas ! did not 
live to see him. Weighed down by sorrow and disappointment, 
he died before I was born — six thousand brief summers before I 
was born. But let us try to bear it with fortitude. Let us trust 
he is better off where he is. Let us take comfort in the thought 
that his loss is our eternal gain." 

Adrian, St. His festival, together with that of his wife, St. 
Natalia, occurs September 8, the anniversary of the translation 
of his relics to Eome. He was anciently commemorated on 
March 4, his death-day. The greatest military saint next to St. 
George, he is especially reverenced in Flanders, Germany, and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



9 



the north of France as the patron of soldiers and a protector 
against the plague. In Flanders he is also the patron of brew- 
ers. Adrian was one of the Praetorian Guards of the Emperor 
Galerius Maximian. While superintending the torture of thirty- 
four Christians, he was converted at sight of their fortitude and 
devotion, and, publicly confessing his faith, was thrown into 
prison. His wife Natalia was in secret a Christian, and greatly 
did she rejoice at the news. Disguised as a man, she obtained 
admittance to his cell and exhorted him to endure to the end. 
The next day Adrian's limbs were struck off on an anvil, and he 
was beheaded, March 4, 306. Natalia held him and sustained 
him in his sufferings, and before the final blow could be given by 
the headsman he expired in her arms. St. Adrian is usually 
represented armed, with an anvil in his hands or at his feet. 
His relics were conveyed to Constantinople, thence to Eome, 
afterwards into Flanders, and found a final resting-place in the 
abbey of St. Adrian, founded in 1088 at Geersburg in Belgium 
by Baldwin YI., Earl of Flanders. But Eaulcourt in the same 
country claims to possess a complete body, all save an arm. 
Ghent has another, entirely complete. The jaw and half an 
arm are shown at Cologne, another part of an arm at Prague, 
a head at Bologna, and various fragments at Douai and at the 
cathedral of Bruges. 

Adriatic, Marriage of the. (It. Sposalizio del Adriatico.) 
A solemn ceremony anciently performed in the Yenice of the 




Marriage of the Adriatic. 
(From an old print.) 



Doges on Ascension Day. It was instituted in 1177 by Pope 
Alexander III. in commemoration of a great naval victory won 



10 CURIOSITIES OF 

by the Venetians over the hostile fleet of Frederick Barbarossa 
at Istria. Giving the Doge, Yitale Michieli II., a ring from his 
own finger, the Pontiff instructed him and his successors on 
every coming Ascension Day to cast a similar ring into the 
Adriatic, promising that the bride so espoused should be as 
dutiful as a wife to her husband. The initial ceremony was 
performed on Ascension Day in that year. The state gondola 
known as the Bucentaur, manned by forty rowers, and gor- 
geously appointed, left the Piazza di San Marco and proceeded 
slowly towards the isle of Lido. In its wake followed gondolas, 
barges, sailing-vessels, and galleys, occupied by persons of rank, 
with minstrels and other attendants. Arriving off the island, 
the Doge first poured holy water into the sea. Then he took 
the ring from his finger and dropped it into the bosom of the 
Adriatic, saying, " We espouse thee, O Sea, in token of our just 
and perpetual dominion." Solemn mass was attended by all the 
celebrants and spectators at the church of St. Nicholas on the 
isle of Lido, and the festivities were rounded out to an epicu- 
rean end by a sumptuous banquet at the ducal palace. After the 
invention of gunpowder a salute of guns was fired as the signal 
for the gondolas and their train to start from St. Mark's Square. 
(See Dart, Throwing of the.) 

Advent. A preparation for Christmas, as Lent is a prepara- 
tion for Easter. In one form or another it is recognized by the 
Eoman, Greek, Lutheran, and Anglican Churches. It is impos- 
sible to fix the exact time when the season began to be observed. 
A canon of a Council at Saragossa, in 380, forbade the faithful 
to absent themselves from the church services during the three 
weeks from December 17 to the Epiphany; this is perhaps the 
earliest trace on record of the observance of Advent. In the 
fifth century it was closely assimilated to Lent, being kept as 
a fast of forty days, — f.e., from Martinmas (November 11) to 
Christmas Eve. Later the length of the season was limited, 
and in the ninth century it was made to begin, as it now does, 
with the Sunday nearest to the feast of St. Andrew (November 
30), whether before or after that day, so that in all cases the 
season of Advent shall contain the uniform number of four Sun- 
days. In the Greek Church, however, it contains six Sundays. 

Besides being a preparation for Christmas, Advent has an- 
other significance in the Eoman Church, as the beginning of the 
ecclesiastical year. Before the sixth century that beginning was 
Easter, both in the West and in the East. The reason for the 
change was that the Jewish ecclesiastical year also began about 
Easter, and the Christians sought to differentiate themselves as 
much as possible from the Jews. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 11 

Since the curtailing of the season the ancient austerities also 
have been greatly relaxed, until at present only the Fridays in 
Advent are fast-days. But no marriages are celebrated during 
the season. Special devotions are enjoined upon the faithful. 
The purple hue of penance is the only color used in the services 
of Advent, except on the feasts of saints. The organ is silenced 
until the third Sunday in Advent, when it again finds its voice, 
to indicate that the assured expectation of a Redeemer has 
tempered mourning. In the Episcopal Church the services ap- 
pointed for the Advent season bear particularly upon the coming 
of the Lord. 

Popular custom has marked this season with quaint and pecu- 
liar observances. In the department of Eure-et-Loire in Nor- 
mandy every farmer fixes upon some day in Advent for the pur- 
pose of exorcising such animals as prove injurious to his crops. 
He furnishes his younger children with prepared flambeaux, well 
dried in the oven. If he have no children his neighbors lend him 
theirs, for only young and innocent children can command cer- 
tain injurious animals to withdraw from his lands. After twelve 
years of age children are unfit to perform the office of exorcists. 
These little people run over the country like so many spirits, set 
fire to bundles of hay, flourish their torches among the branches 
of the trees, burn the straw placed underneath, and continually 
cry out, — 

Mice, cuterpillars, and moles, 

Get out, get out of my field ; 

I will burn your beard and bones : 
Trees and shrubs 

Give me bushels of apples. 

Accidents might be supposed to arise from this lawless assem- 
bly of juvenile torch-bearers ; but their fire is believed to burn 
only vermin. Such at least is the opinion of the simple inhab- 
itants of Eure-et-Loire. 

In Italy the Advent season is duly celebrated, especially in 
Rome. One custom is worth referring to. In the last days of 
Advent the Calabrian pifferari, or bagpipe-players, enter Rome, 
and are to be seen in every street salutinjr the shrines of the 
Yirgin Mother with their wild music, under the traditional notion 
of soothing her until the birth-time of her infant at the approach- 
ing Christmas. They also stop in front of carpenter-shops, out 
of respect to St. Joseph, who was a carpenter by trade. 

The pifferari play a pipe very similar in form and sound to the 
bagpipes of the Highlanders. " Just before Christmas," says Lady 
Morgan, "they descend from the mountains to Naples and Rome, 
in order to play before the pictures of the Virgin and Child," 
which are common in every Italian town, and abound in the 



12 CURIOSITIES OF 

cities. Eaphael's picture of the Nativity has a shepherd stand- 
ing at the door playing upon his pipes. This is in accordance 
with Italian tradition, which holds that the bagpipe was the 
favorite instrument of the Virgin Mary, and that the shepherds 
played on it when they visited the Saviour. 

Aubanus tells us that in Franconia, on each of the three 
Thursdays preceding Christmas, it was customary for young 
boys and girls to ^o from house to house, knocking at the doors, 
singing their Christmas carols and wishing a happy New Year. 
In return they received gifts of pears, apples, nuts, or money. 
Barnaby Googe also refers to this custom, in his paraphrase of 
Naogeorgus's " Popish Kingdom :" 

Three weekes before the day whereon was borne the Lorde of Grace, 
And on the Thursdays boyes and gyrles do runne in every place, 
And bounce and beat at every doore, with blowes and lustie snaps, 
And crie the Advent of the Lord, not borne as yet perbaps, 
And wishing to the neighbours all, that in the houses dwell, 
A happy year, and everything to spring and prosper well : 
Here have they peares, and plumbs, and pence, each man gives willinglie. 
For these three nightes are always thought unfortunate to bee : 
Wherein they are afrayde of sprites, and cankred witches spight, 
And dreadfull devils blacke and grim, that then have chiefest might. 

At this season, also, rustic young girls attempted to divine the 
names of their husbands that should be. Barnaby says, — 

In these same dayes yong, wanton gyrles that meete for marriage bee. 
Doe search to know the names of them that shall their husbands bee. 
Foure onyons, five, or eight, they take, and make in every one 
Such names as they do fansie most and best do thinke upon. 
Thus neere the chim-ney them they set, and that same onyon than, 
That first doth sproute, doth surely beare the name of their good man. 

They also endeavor to divine the character of the "good man" 
by going at night to the wood-stack and drawing out the first 
stick that the hand meets : 

Which if it streight and even be, and have no knots at all, 
A gentle husband then they thinke shall surely to them fall ; 
But if it fowle and crooked be, and knottie here and there, 
A crabbed, churlish husband then they earnestly.do feare. 

For all these wicked doings Barnaby goes on to blame the 
" Papistes," 

Who rather had the people should obey their foolish lust, 
Than truly God to know, and in him here alone to trust. 

An English custom which is extinct save in remote interior 
parishes is more directly traceable to the " Papistes." This is 
the custom of carrying about Advent Images — two dolls dressed 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 13 

up to represent the Saviour and the Virgin Mary — by poor women 
in the week before Christmas. A halfpenny is expected from 
every person to whom these are exhibited. Bad luck will follow 
to him who refuses. (See Yessel-Cup.) 

Afra, St., patroness of Augsburg, Germany. Her feast on 
August 5 is especially honored in this her native city. Legend 
asserts that she was originally a courtesan, who with her three 
handmaidens, Digna, Eunomia, and Eutropia, led a dissolute life 
during the reign of Diocletian. A priest named Narcissus, flee- 
ing from persecution, took shelter in her house in ignorance of 
its character. He converted and baptized her and her com- 
panions, and she aided him to escape. For this offence she was 
imprisoned, and when she confessed the faith she was burnt alive, 
August 7, 304. All the members of her household also suffered 
martyrdom on the same day. But for some reason St. Afra and 
her companions are commemorated on August 5. Her relics are 
supposed to have been discovered in 955 by St. Ulfric. They 
now repose in the church of SS. Ulfric and Afra in Augsburg. 

Agape, pi. Agapse. (Gr. dydmf), "love.") The love-feast of 
the ancient Christians, when all the members of a congregation, 
even the master and his slaves, met together at a common meal, 
celebrating the Eucharist, as brethren and sisters of the same 
family. The Agape therefore was a social symbol of the equality 
and solidarity of all Christendom, hallowed and sealed by the 
eucharistic sacrifice. Here all gave and received the kiss of 
peace {q. v.), and here connmunications from other congregations 
were received and read. The Agape dates from apostolic times, 
for it is mentioned in Jude 12 and described at some length in I. 
Corinthians xi. 23. But even in St. Paul's day its liability to 
abuse was recognized. As each congregation grew larger and 
more diverse in its membership, social differences began to assert 
themselves. The Agapse lost their original significance. They 
either became distinctively the entertainments of the rich, where 
luxury was encouraged, or. sank down into a kind of poor-house 
institution. Finally the third Council of Carthage (a.d. 391) 
decreed that the Eucharist should be taken fasting, and thereby 
separated the Agape from the celebration of the Eucharist. 
Towards the end of the fourth century the Council of Laodicea 
forbade " eating in the house of the Lord;" but from the fact 
that the Synod in Trullo (a.d. 692) had to repeat this prohibition 
it is evident that the practice died hard. From the complaints 
of St. Augustine it would seem that in his time the custom still 
survived of permitting communion once a year — viz., Holy 
Thursday — to those who had just partaken of Agape. 



14 CURIOSITIES OF 

Agatha, St. The festival of this saint occurs on February 5, 
and is specially honored in Malta and in Catania, Sicily, of 
which places she is the patroness. She is generally held to be a 
native of Catania, though Palermo disputes the honor. Quin- 
tianus, whom Decius had made King of Sicily, laid siege to her 
virtue, and because she repulsed him ordered her to be bound and 
beaten and her bosom to be torn with shears. But at midnight St. 
Peter descended into her dungeon and healed her. Then Quin- 
tianus ordered her to the stake. No sooner was the torch 
applied than an earthquake broke out, and the citizens forced 
Quintianus to rescue her from the flames. She was cast back 
into prison, and God took her to himself (February 5, 251). A 
year after her death the volcano of Mt. Etna burst into flame. 
The fire had nearly reached the city, when its progress was 
arrested by the veil of St. Agatha, which some of the inhabi- 
tants had placed upon the top of a pole and borne out in pro- 
cession ; and all the heathen were converted by this miracle and 
received baptism. St. Agatha is a patroness against fire and all 
diseases of the breast. She is represented with the palm in one 
hand and in the other a salver on which is the female breast. 

Most of the saint's relics are preserved at Catania in a church 
dedicated to her which Gregory the Great purged from the 
Arian impiety, and which was rebuilt in 460. The same Pope 
sent some of her bones to the monastery of St. Stephen, in the 
island of Capri. 

The distinguishing feature of the festival at Catania is a pony- 
race, closely analogous to the Barberi (^. v.) of the Eoman Carni- 
val. It is thus described by an eye-witness : " The ponies destined 
ibr the contest have no riders ; but, by means of wax, ribbons are 
firmly attached to their backs ; and to these again are appended 
bladders, and weighted pieces of wood, armed with sharp spikes ; 
the noise of the one, and the pain inflicted by the other, being 
amply sufiicient to urge to exertion animals much better qualified 
to resist the efl'ect of either than the horse. At the firing of a 
signal gun they are turned loose from one extremity of the 
street ; and amidst the shouts of the populace which lines it on 
both sides, they make what haste they can to the other. Here 
I discovered to my great surprise, sitting in the open air, under 
a canopj^ of crimson, arrayed in robes of office a good deal 
resembling those of our barristers, the members of the senate, 
with their intendente or president. The business of these first 
magistrates of the city, decked out in all their paraphernalia, 
and attended by drummers, fifers, and musketeers, was to declare 
the winner among half a dozen jades, the best of which was not 
worth ten pounds. It was difficult to suppress a smile on seeing 
one of the parties rise, discuss the matter with the rest of the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 15 

bench, and, not without much action and emphasis and delibera- 
tion, deliver the senatus consultum to the expectant crowd. The 
mottoes on the canopy might have been selected for the purposes 
of burlesque : ' Invictas supero,' ' Gatana Hegum,' ' Tutrix Castigo 
Rebellis' " (Rev. John James Blunt : Vestiges of Ancient Man- 
ners and Customs discoverable in Modern Italy and Sicily^ London, 
1823.) 

A curious ceremony on St. Agatha's Day still survives at 
Biddenham, England, and possibly other remote rural parishes. 
Shortly before noon a procession of villagers, carrying a white 
rabbit decorated with scarlet ribbons, passes through the village, 
singing a hymn in honor of St. Agatha. Maids old and young 
who meet the procession point at the rabbit with the first two 
fingers of the right hand, saying, — 

Gustin, Gustin, lacks a bier ! 
Maidens, maidens, bury him here. 

The custom is said to date from the year of the first Crusade. 

Agnes, St. One of the four great virgin martyrs of the 
Latin Church. Her festival occurs on January 21, the reputed 
anniversary of her martyrdom. St. Agnes was born a Chris- 
tian, and at a very early age had vowed herself to virginity. 
When only thirteen she was sought in marriage by the son of the 
prefect Sempronius. She refused him, saying she was already 
affianced to one whom she dearly loved, meaning Jesus. The 
young man fell sick of disappointed love, and Sempronius, learn- 
ing his secret, besought the maiden to take pity on the unhappy 
youth. But Agnes answered as before that she was already 
affianced. When Sempronius inquired her meaning and learned 
that she was a Christian, he rejoiced, for he knew she was in his 
power. He commanded her to become a vestal virgin, and on 
her refusal he had her taken to a house of infamy to be exposed 
to outrage. The soldiers stripped her of her raiment, but her 
hair became as a veil, covering her whole body, and those who 
looked upon her were filled with fear. When they had left her 
to herself, she praj'ed that she might not be dishonored, and a 
shining white garment descended into the room. She put it 
on, rejoicing. Soon afterwards the son of Sempronius entered, 
thinking that now she must be subdued, but the light from the 
garment struck him blind, and he fell down in convulsions. 
Agnes was moved to compassion by the tears of his relations, 
and through her prayers he was healed. Then Sempronius would 
fain have released her, but the multitude cried out that she was 
a sorceress, and clamored for her death. She was bound to a 
stake. The fire consumed her executioners, but would not hurt 



16 CURIOSITIES OF 

her. At last a soldier climbed the pile and killed her with his 
sword. The day of her martyrdom is given as January 21, 304. 
She was buried by the Christians in the Yia Nomentana, and her 
tomb became their place of assembly for devotion. At first the 
pagans sought to drive them away by hurling stones at them, 
but, having struck a maiden named Emerantiane, lightning 
darted out of the skies and killed many of the assailants. There- 
after they suffered the Christians to assemble in peace around 
the tomb, and there on the eighth day after her death the 
virgin appeared to them, surrounded by other holy martyrs 
and with a spotless lamb by her side, and assured them of her 
happiness. It is on this account that St. Agnes is represented 
with a lamb by her side. She is usually clothed in white, with 
the palm of martyrdom in her hand. 

Constantine built a church in her honor over the reputed spot 
of her burial. It was repaired by Pope Honorius in the seventh 
century, and was enriched with her relics (still preserved here 
in a rich silver shrine) by Pope Paul Y., in whose time they were 
discovered under the floor of the church. The edifice is of Byz- 
antine architecture, with galleries high up near the roof, and an 
altar turned towards the apse instead of facing the nave. 

In Catholic countries it was once usual to bless a lamb on St. 
Agnes' Day, no doubt a recrudescence under Christian forms of 
the ancient Eoman custom of invoking upon sheep the blessing 
of Pales, the goddess of sheepfolds and pastures. The lamb, 
gayly decorated, was first led through the streets by a holiday- 
making crowd. A more special celebration of this kind is still 
practised at Eome, when every year on St Agnes' Day two 
chosen lambs, of undoubted virginity, are blessed by the Pope 
in the church of St. Agnes after pontifical high mass. These 
are carefully guarded until shearing-time, when their wool is 
woven by nuns into the pallium (ji. v.) worn by the Pope and the 
primates of the Church. 

This ceremony is mentioned by l^aogeorgus : 

For in St. Agnes' church upon this day while masse they sing, 
Two lambes as white as snowe, the Nonnes do yearely use to bring : 
And when the Agnus chaunted is, upon the aultar hie 
(For in this thing there hidden is a solemne mysterie), 
They offer them. The servaunts of the Pope, when this is done. 
Do put them into pasture good till shearing time be come. 
Then other wool! they mingle with these holy fleeses twaine, 
Whereof, being sponne and drest, are made the Pals of passing gaine. 

[The Popish Kingdom, translated by Barnaby Googe.) 

In Jephson's "Manners, etc., of France and Italy" is a poet- 
ical epistle dated from Eome, 14th February, 1793, certifying 
the use of this ceremony at that time : 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 17 



ST. AGNES'S SHRINE. 

Where each pretty Ba-lamb most ijaily appears, 

With ribands stuck round on its tail and its ears ; 

On gold-fringed cushions they're stretch 'd out to eat, 

And piously 6a, and to church music bleat ; 

Yet to me ihey seem'd crying — alack, and alas ! 

What's all this white damask to daisies and grass ! 

Then they're brought to the Pope, and with transport they're kiss'd, 

And receive consecration from Sanctity's fist : 

To chaste Nuns he consigns them, instead of their dams, 

And orders the friars to keep them from rams. 

About 1850 the Pope and his retinue, while enjoying a slight 
refection in a hall adjoining the church, just after the ceremony, 
were suddenly precipitated through the rotten floor into a cellar 
beneath. Almost all escaped unhurt, which was certainly a 
remarkable occurrence, and was commemorated in after-years 
by a fresco of marvellous ugliness and very small skill, painted 
on the remaining wall of the former cellar. It is now enclosed 
within a portico looking into the court in front of the church, 
and, if a credit to Eoman feeling, is no less a disgrace to modern 
Eoman art. 

The eve of St. Agnes' feast is not- to be despised as a period 
of prophetic promise for maidens in search of a husband. An 
ancient method of divination, mentioned by Aubrey in his " Mis- 
cellanies," directs that " upon St. Agnes' Night you take a row 
of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a 
Pater Noster, sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream 
of him or her you shall marry." A more elaborate method was 
for a maiden to leave her home and go to a strange locality. 
When she retired to sleep that night she was to take her right- 
leg stocking and knit the left garter around it, saying the while, — 

I knit this knot, this knot I knit, 
To know the thing I know not yet. 
That I may see 

The man that shall my husband be, 
Not in his best or worst array. 
But what he weareth every day ; 
That I to-morrow may him ken 
From among all other men. 

At the conclusion of these words she was to lie down on her 
back with her hands under her head, and her future spouse 
would surely appear in a dream and salute her with a kiss. In 
all cases the charm was rendered more certain if the maiden 
went supperless to bed. Thus Burton, in "The Anatomy of 
Melancholy," speaks of " maids fasting on St. Agnes' Eve, to 
know who shall be their first husband." It is John Keats who 

2 



18 CURIOSITIES OF 

has made the superstitions of this vigil ever memorable in liter- 
ature by founding upon them his exquisite poem of " St. Agnes' 
Eve." 

They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve, 
Young virgins might have visions of delight, 
And soft adorings from their loves receive 
Upon the honeyed middle of the night, 
If ceremonies due they did aright ; 
As, supperless to bed they must retire. 
And couch supine their beauties lily-white ; 
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require 
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire. 

Another dream-charm for St. Agnes' Eve was to lake a sprig 
of rosemary and another of thyme and sprinkle them thrice 
with water, then place one in each shoe, and stand shoe and 
sprig on each side of the bed, repeating, — 

St. Agnes, that's to lovers kind. 
Come ease the trouble of my mind. 

In the northern parts of Scotland the lads and lasses used to 
meet together on St. Agnes' Eve at midnight. One by one 
would then go into a cornfield and throw grain on the soil. After 
this all said the following rhyme : 

Agnes sweet and Agnes fair, 
Hither, hither, now repair ; 
Bonny Agnes, let me see 
The lad [or lass] who is to marry me. 

On their return home it was expected that each would see in 
a mirror the shadow of the destined bride or bridegroom. 

Agnus Dei. (Lat., "Lamb of Grod.") A prayer based on 
John i. 29, "Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the 
world, have mercy on us," which was introduced into the mass 
by Pope Sergius I. in 680. The name is also applied to heart- 
shaped wax medallions bearing the figure of a lamb, which are 
made from the remains of the Paschal candle {q. v.), and solemnly 
blessed by the Pope on the Thursday after Easter, in the first 
and seventh year of his pontificate. From Amalarius we learn 
that in the ninth century the Agnus Dei's were made of wax 
and oil by the Archdeacon of Eome, blessed by the Pope, and 
distributed to the people during the octave of Easter. An Agnus 
Lei said to have belonged to Charlemagne is among the treasures 
of the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle. 

Aissaoua. An exhibition of immunity from pain given by 
the Aissaoui, members of a Mohammedan sect which was 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 19 

founded in the fifteenth century by Sidi Mohammed-ben-Aissa. 
The latter was a marabout prophet who lived a holy life near 
Mequinez, in Morocco, aroused the jealousy of the Sultan 
Mo ulai- Ismail by his increasing influence, and was driven out 
with his wives and children and those of his disciples who were 
faithful enough to follow him into exile. Sustenance failed them 
on the way, and when his hungry followers asked for food the 
saint bade them eat poison, if they could find nothing else, and 
himself set about searching among the stones for scorpions and 
serpents, which they devoured without harm. So runs the 
legend. To this day the Aissaoui, it is pretended, have the 
power to resist the poison of venomous beasts in themselves, and 
to cure its effects in others. Not only this, but they claim im- 
munity from physical harm and an absolute insensibility to pain 
of all kinds. The members of the confraternity nowadays ex- 
hibit their powers of endurance to native audiences, or are even 
willing to turn an honest penny, at times, by giving a special 
show to Europeans. William H. Carpenter, in the JVew York 
Evening Post for January 12, 1896, describes an Aissaoua that he 
witnessed in Algiers. He tells how the performers gathered 
around a charcoal fire burning in a brazier. One of them drew out 
a red-hot iron and licked it with his tongue. He then placed a 
burning coal between his teeth and fanned it by his breath into 
a white heat. Another snatched an iron rod with a ball on one 
end from the fire, and after winding one of his eyelids around it 
until the eyeball was completely exposed, he thrust its point in 
behind the eye, which was forced far out on his cheek. It was 
held there for a moment, when it was withdrawn, and the eye 
released, which was then rubbed vigorously a few times with the 
ballad end of the rod. Another let a live scorpion fasten its 
fangs into the inside of his cheek, where it hung suspended for 
some time before he chewed and ate it. Another balanced him- 
self across the edge of a bare sword on his naked stomach while 
a comrade sprang violently upon his back and stood there. Still 
another took a burning wisp of hay and passed it all over his 
body and then wound up the performance by pulling out of the 
fire the balled instrument already described and jabbing it 
repeatedly into the pit of his stomach. " How much of the ex- 
hibition was real," says Mr. Carpenter, " and how much pure 
sleight of hand, I have no means of knowing. A critical 
analysis of the performance came later, and it was then for the 
first time remembered that there had been no sign of blood, not 
even the slightest, from beginning to end ; no mark of any kind 
had been left by the sword ; and the fire of the blazing wisp had 
not even singed the man's garments, over which it had inadver- 
tently been passed. The man whose stomach was so ruthlessly 



20 CURIOSITIES OF 

assaulted apparently had the worst part to play of all, for there 
were indubitably a number of black and blue scars which plainly 
bespoke previous experiences." 

Aix-la-Chapelle, Great Relics of. The relics distinctively 
so known are four in number, — viz., the tunic of the Blessed 
Virgin, the swaddling-clothes of the infant Jesus, the cloth that 
encircled the loins of Jesus on the cross, and the cloth in which 
the head of St. John the Baptist was enveloped after his decapita- 
tion. Their exposition in the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle every 
seven years from the 10th to the 24th of July is one of the most 
famous ceremonies of Catholicity, and draws to Aix enormous 
crowds of pilgrims. The tunic of the Virgin is yellowish in 
color, five feet and a half in length, and three feet and a quarter 
in circumference. A very small amount of decoration is to be 
found upon it, and a small piece of the cloth has been torn out. 
The swaddling-clothes of the infant Jesus are folded thrice in 
double folds. Eibbons are the sole decoration, which border 
them in the fashion of a collar. They are brownish yellow, 
loosely woven. The linen of St. John the Baptist is of fine 
texture, folded and bound with red ribbons. It is stained with 
blood. The linen cloth which was bound about Christ's loins 
upon the cross is of a heavy texture, folded, and showing great 
blood-stains. It is folded in triangular shape, having a length 
of four feet two and a half inches and a width of four feet ten 
inches. 

According to the legend, when Charlemagne had finished 
building the church of Our Lady in Aix-la-Chapelle he set him- 
self to the collecting of these relics from Eome, Constantinople, 
and Jerusalem, and secured in addition a number of lesser ones, 
among which may be mentioned the girdle of Christ, which is 
sealed at the ends with the seal of the Emperor Constantine ; a 
small piece of the cord with which Christ was bound during the 
flagellation ; the girdle of the Virgin ; a bit of the sponge which 
was offered to Christ on the cross ; a lock of hair from the head 
of St. Bartholomew ; two of St. Thomas the Apostle's teeth ; 
one of the arms of the old Simeon ; a fragment of the cross, 
which was given to Charlemagne by Pope Leo III., and which 
he bore continually on his person ; a tooth of St. Catherine ; the 
point of a nail with which Christ was attached to the cross ; a 
bit of the rod which served in the mocking of Christ ; a lock of 
hair from the head of St. John the Baptist; a bust in gilded 
silver of Charlemagne, in which is enclosed the emperor's skull ; 
and, in a reliquary shaped like an arm, the right arm of Charle- 
magne, presented by Louis XI., King of France, in 1481. 

The septennial exhibition dates from the ninth century, and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 21 

remains practically the same that it was from its origin. Every 
morning at ten o'clock the relics are brought out by the priests 
to a lofty balcony on the exterior of the church and there ex- 
posed to the veneration of the crowd gathered outside in the 
square. Later (from one to eight p.m.) the church is thrown 
open to pilgrims. The relics are arranged on various altars, but 
at stated times are carried around by the priests for the laity to 
kiss. The last day of the exposition is distinguished by a pro- 
cession in the streets, in which the Great Eelics are borne in 
their superb shrines by the canons of the cathedral. The date 
of the last ceremony was 1895. 

The Antiquary for November, 1888, translates from the Eoman 
Catholic Germania this description of the manner in which these 
famous relics are stored away after their exposure in the cathe- 
dral : " The relics were first placed in silk wrappers, the gown 
of the Mother of God being enveloped in white, the swaddling- 
clothes of Christ in yellow, His loin-cloth in red, and the cloth 
on which rested the head of John the Baptist was carried in pale 
pink silk. After this each relic was wrapped up in a cloth richly 
embroidered with real pearls, the four cloths being presents which 
in 1629 the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenie of Spain offered at 
the sacred shrines. Next, each reHc was put in a special pocket 
closed with buttons, another cloth was wrapped round them, and 
a cover of tissue-paper, the color of which corresponded to that 
of the silk wrapper. Each parcel was then tied up with silk 
ribbons, the ends of which were sealed with the seal of the 
relics. Then a torchlight procession accompanied them to the 
Hungarian chapel, and they were deposited in the large ' Mary's 
shrine.' The iron lid was screwed on, the padlock filled with lead, 
and the key to it crushed to powder before the eyes of the spec- 
tators. A Te Deum was sung, and the solemn procession re- 
turned to the upper regions to sign a paper in which it is stated 
that the sealed relics had once again been enclosed in the secret 
parts of the minster." 

Alb. (Lat. alha^ " white.") A long tunic or vestment of white 
linen worn by the Eoman priest at mass. While donning it he 
prays, "Make me white, O Lord, and cleanse me." It differs 
from the Anghcan surplice in fitting closer and in being encircled 
with a girdle. The alb is a modification of the tunic or under- 
garment of the Greeks and Eomans. It first appears in Church 
history as the distinctive robe of the newly baptized, worn until 
the Sunday after Easter, White-Sunday (Whitsunday). By the 
fourth century it had become a special part of the ecclesiastical 
garment. A canon of the fourth Council of Carthage, 398, 
orderg deacons to use the alb " only at the time of the oblation 



22 CURIOSITIES OF 

or of reading." The Council of ]S"arbonne in 589 forbade dea- 
cons, subdeacons, or lectores to put off the alb until after mass. 
But it seems that for a long time after the alb was worn in daily 
life as well as at the altar, for we read of a bishop of Soissons in 
889 forbidding an ecclesiastic to use at mass the same alb that 
he wore at home. 

Alban, St. His festival is June 22. As the first English saint 
and martyr, he was highly venerated in pre-Eeformation times in 
England. The Abbot of St. Alban's in Hertfordshire had prece- 
dence over all others. Born in Yerulam, St. Alban was converted 
by a priest who had sought refuge with him against persecution. 
St. Alban donned his guest's robes, and delivered himself up to 
the soldiers in pursuit. When the fraud was discovered, he con- 
fessed himself a Christian, and was tortured and beheaded, June 
22, 303. To reach the place of execution it was necessary to 
cross the river Coin, but, the bridge being insufficient for the 
vast multitude of spectators, St. Alban said a prayer, the waters 
were divided, and all went over dry-shod. At the place of exe- 
cution he prayed for water, and a spring gushed out. Hence his 
attribute, besides the sword, is a fountain of water. 

The present town of St. Albans is built upon the scene of the 
martyrdom. In the time of Constantine, according to Bede, a 
large church was erected on the very spot, and was rendered 
illustrious by frequent miracles. The pagon Saxons destroyed 
it, but Offa, King of the Mercians, raised another in 793 with a 
great monastery. In mediaeval times the shrine of St. Alban's 
was a popular place of pilgrimage. " Our island for many ages," 
says Alban Butler, "had recourse to St. Alban as its glorious 
protomartyr and powerful patron with God, and acknowledged 
many great favors received from God, through his intercession. 
By it St. Germanus procured a triumph without Christian blood 
and gained a complete victory both over the spiritual and cor- 
poral enemies of this country." 

About the year 900 the Danes sacked the abbey and carried 
off the bones of the martyr to a convent at Owensee. But a 
holy man named Egwin obtained admittance by stratagem to 
the latter convent and surreptitiously returned the remains to 
St. Alban's, where numerous miracles attested the saint's ap- 
proval of the pious theft. When the Danes next ravaged the 
country, ^Ifric, the eleventh abbot, concealed the true relics in 
a cavity in the walls of the church, and as a further precaution 
sent a bogus body to the monastery at Ely. On the departure 
of the Danes ^Ifric reclaimed the counterfeit, but the wily monks 
at Ely sent him a counterfeit of the counterfeit. The true relics 
were then brought from their hiding-place and depositee^ in a 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 23 

Bhrine. Straightway the monks of Ely publicly proclaimed the 
artifice they had practised and declared that the ouly genuine 
saint was in their possession. For a century the " true bones" 
were exhibited both at St. Alban's and at Ely, until the Pope sent 
three bishops to Ely to inquire into the matter, when the monks 
acknowledged that they had been outwitted. 

The shrine stood near the centre of St. Alban's Chapel. Ac- 
cording to contemporary chroniclers, it was a glorious work, rich 
in gold and precious stones and cunning workmanship. It was 
shown only on high holidays, being on other occasions covered 
with an operculum worked by cords and pulleys. On the sup- 
pression of the monastery by Henry YIII. in 1539, the shrine with 
its contents disappeared. There is a legend that it found its way 
to the church of St. Mauritius in Cologne, where indeed the shrine 
of St. Albinus is still exhibited. But Albinus and Alban were two 
different saints. In 1872, in the course of certain restorations, 
an immense quantity of carved fragments was found, evidently 
the remnants of the shrine destroyed by the fury of an icono- 
clastic mob. As soon as the general plan was made out, the 
work of rebuilding was commenced, and continued with amazing 
patience until the whole was put together as it now stands in 
the site it occupied for centuries, and in a more perfect condi- 
t,Mn than even the more famous shrine of St. Edward at West- 
minster. 

Ale, Church and College. In mediaeval England, festivals 
lit which ale was the chief item of refreshment were celebrated 
both in parishes and in universities, and hence were known as 
Church or College Ales. The ecclesiastical custom, as Strutt 
points out (" Sports and Pastimes," Chatto & Windus's ed., p. 
471), originated from the wakes (q. v.). The churchwardens and 
other chief parish officers, observing the latter festival to be more 
popular than any others, rightly conceived that by establishing 
similar institutions within the church limits they might draw 
together a large concourse of people and annually collect from 
them such suras of money as would be a great easement to the 
parish rates. The meeting was held in the churchyard or in 
some barn near the church, and took on something of a picnic 
character, as every man brought what victuals he could spare. 
The ale, which had been brewed good and strong for the occa- 
sion, was sold by the churchwardens, who retained the profits as 
a fund to keep the church in repairs, or to be distributed in alms 
to the poor. 

To modern temperance ideas it is somewhat surprising to come 
upon an inscription like the following on a church gallery, as 
actually occurs at Sygate, in Norfolk : 



24 CURIOSITIES OF 

God speed the plough 

And give us good ale enow. . . . 

Be merry and glade, 

With good ale was this work made. 

In some instances the inhabitants of one or more parishes were 
mulcted in a certain sum to provide the ale for the day. Among 
the Dodsworth MSS. (Bid. Bob., vol. 148, folio 97) is preserved 
an ancient stipulation, couched in the following terms : " The 
parishioners of Elverton and those of Okebrook in Derbyshire 
agree jointly to brew four ales, and every ale of one quarter of 
malt, between this and the feast of Saint John the Baptist next 
comming, and every inhabitant of the said town of Okebrook 
shall be at the several ales; and every husband and his wife 
shall pay two pence, and every cottager one penny. And the 
inhabitants of Elverton shall have and receive all the profits 
comming of the said ales, to the use and behoof of the church 
of Elverton ; and the inhabitants of Elverton shall brew eight 
ales betwixt this and the feast of Saint John, at which ales the 
inhabitants of Okebrook shall come and pay as before rehearsed; 
and if any be away one ale, he is to pay at t'oder ale for 
both." 

In Sir Eichard Worsley's " History of the Isle of Wight," p. 
210, speaking of the parish of Whitwell, he tells us that there is 
a lease in the parish chest, dated 1574, " of a house called the 
church house, held by the inhabitants of Whitwell, parishioners 
of Gatcombe, of the Lord of the manor, and demised by them 
to John Brode, in which is the following proviso : Provided al- 
ways, that, if the Quarter shall need at any time to make a 
Quarter-Ale, or Church-Ale, for the maintenance of the chapel, 
that it shall be lawful for them to have the use of the said house, 
with all the rooms, both above and beneath, during their Ale." 
It appears from a Sermon made at Bland ford Forum, 1570, by 
William Kethe, that it was the custom at that time for the 
Church Ales to be kept upon the Sabbath-day ; which holy day, 
says our author, " the multitude call their revelyng day, which 
day is spent in bulbeatings, beare-beatings, bowlings, dicyng, 
cardyng, daunsynges, and drunkenness, in so much, as men could 
not keepe their servauntes from lyinge out of theyre own houses 
the same Sabbath-day at night." 

In course of time the word ale not only grew to be the generic 
designation for these feasts, but entered into the names Of other 
merrymakings, such as Gyst-ale, Lammas-ale, Leet-ale, and even 
Bride-ale or Bridal. Celebrated at first on Sundays, without 
regard to the season, they gradually grew to be limited first to 
Easter, Christmas, and Whitsuntide, and eventually to the latter 
holiday alone. Hence the Whitsun-ales were the last remnant 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 25 

of the custom, and in spite of Puritan opposition these have or 
until recently did have local survivals in England. 

Audrey mentions this custom as continuing to his grandfather's 
time, and speaks approvingly of it, reaiarking that in his own 
parish "there were no poor rates; the Whitsun ale did the busi- 
ness. . . . All things [at the festival] were civil and without scan- 
dal." The abuse of such festivities is often denounced, but the 
most sober and religious persons of the vicinity never appear to 
have objected lo the fact of the brewing and sale of the beer. 
Even the Puritans of the seventeenth century had no special 
quarrel with the beverages vended on these occasions ; they 
merely denounced "church ales" in the same company with May- 
poles, stage plays, and all other amusements. Prynne himself 
was certainly no abstainer ; for he records that during his im- 
prisonment he took few regular meals, " rarely dined," but every 
three or four hours " munched a manchet and refreshed his ex- 
hausted spirits" with a cup of ale brought by his servant. 

In 1597 a certain Puritanic minister of Eedbourne inveighed 
thus against the Whitsun-ales : " These are in their origin bad ; 
they are shamefully abused, having in them piping and dancing, 
and Maid Marian coming into the church at the time of prayer 
to move laughter with kissing in the church, and they justly 
deserve to be called profane, riotous and disorderly." (Anti- 
quary, vol. xiii. p. 183.) 

In the " Yirgins' complaint for the loss of their sweethearts 
by these present wars, and their now long solitude, and keep- 
ing their virginities against their wills," presented to the House 
of Commons in the " names and behalfes" of all damsels both 
country and city, January 29, 1632-3, by sundry virgins of the 
city of London, occurs the following mention of church ales : 
" since the departure of the lusty young gentlemen courtiers and 
cavaliers, and the ablest 'prentices and handsome journeymen 
with whom we had used to walk to Islington and Pimlico to 
eat cakes and drink Christian-ale on holy days." 

" At present," says Douce, quoting from Kudder, " the Whit- 
sun-ales are conducted in the following manner. Two persons 
are chosen, previously to the meeting, to be lord and lady of the 
ale, who dress as suitably as they can to the character they as- 
sume. A large empty barn, or some such building, is provided for 
the lord's hall, and fitted up with seats to accommodate the com- 
pany. Here they assemble to dance and regale in the best manner 
their circumstances and the place will afford; and each young 
fellow treats his girl with a ribbon or favor. The lord and lady 
honor the hall with their presence, attended by the steward, 
sword-bearer, purse-bearer, and mace-bearer, with their several 
^-^adges or ensigns of office. They have likewise a train-bearer or 



26 CURIOSITIES OF 

* 
page, and a fool or jester, drest in a party-colored jacket, whose 
ribaldry and gesticulation contribute not a little to the entertain- 
ment of some part of the company. The lord's music, consisting 
of a pipe and tabor, is employed to conduct the dance. Some 
people think this custom is a commemoration of the ancient Drink- 
lean, a day of festivity formerly observed by the tenants and vas- 
sals of the lord of the fee within his manor ; the memory of which, 
on account of the jollity of those meetings, the people have thus 
preserved ever since. The glossaries inform us that this Drink- 
lean was a contribution of tenants towards a potation or J.^e pro- 
vided to entertain the lord or his steward." 

Dunkin in his "History of Bicester" (1816) gives a curious 
account of a survival in his day and at that place of the Whit- 
sun-ale : " A barn, the scene of the festivities, is called a hall, 
two of the principal male and female characters are dubbed 
lord and lady, and others bear the name of my lord's waiting- 
man and my lady's waiting-maid. A treasurer, who carries a tin 
box before him, a set of morris dancers, a Merry Andrew to clear 
the ring for dancing in, form the remainder of the group, and 
these, fantastically dressed and decorated with ribbons, dance or 
parade among the spectators. The barn doors are ornamented 
with an owl or monkey, who bear the appropriate names of my 
lord's parrot and m.y lady's lapdog, and to miscall any of them, 
or accept of my lord's cake and ale which are carried about in 
profusion and offered to all comers, subjects the offending party 
to a forfeiture of sixpence, for which, however, he is treated to a 
ride on my lord's gelding [a fantastic hobby-horse carried on 
men's shoulders], if a man, before my lady, or if a lady, before 
my lord, who of course considers himself entitled to a salute ; 
but if this honor is declined, for an additional sixpence the for- 
feiting party is privileged to enter my lord's hall, and is enter- 
tained with cake and ale. By the sums collected in this manner, 
together with those arising from the voluntary visits of parties 
to the hall, the expenses of the entertainment, which are very 
considerable, are defrayed, and oftentimes the surplus is applied 
to charitable purposes. A few years ago a funeral pall, for the 
use of the poor, was purchased in this way. A towering May- 
pole erected some time before Whitsuntide serves to announce 
the amusement to the neighboring villages, and the crowds which 
usually attend attract great numbers of those itinerant traders 
who attend markets and fairs, so that the festival may be con- 
sidered one of the most entertaining in the country. At the 
neighboring village of Kirtlington is a similar amusement held 
annually on Lammas day, and thence denominated a Lamb Ale." 
Colleges in former times used to brew their own ale and hold 
festivities known as College Ales. The ales of Brasenose and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 27 

Magdalen Colleges at Oxford were especially famous, the poems 
connected with the Erasenose celebrations being among the best 
of bibulous songs. In one of them occurs this theory of evolu- 
tion : 

A Grand Cross of " Malta" one night at a ball 

Tell ill love with and married Hoppetta the Tall, 

Hoppetta, the bitterest, best of her .sex, 

By whom he had issue the first Double X. 

Three others were born by this marriage : a girl, 

Transparent as amber and precious as pearl ; 

Then a son twice as strong as a porter or scout, 

And another as " spruce" as his brother was " stout." 

Double X, like his sister, is brilliant and clear ; 
Like his mother, though bitter, by no means severe ; 
Like his father, not small, and, resembling each brother, 
Joins the spirit of one to the strength of the other. 

An ale of unusual strength is still brewed at Oxford, called 
Chancellor's Ale. Sixteen bushels of malt are used to the barrel. 
Two wineglassfuls will intoxicate most people. It is kept in oak 
bell-shaped casks, and is never tapped until it is two years old. 
Some of the casks have been in use for half a century, but " Chan- 
cellor ale" is used only at high table, when a man takes very high 
honors. On such or other extra-special occasions the dean will 
grant an order for a pint of this liquor, the largest quantity ever 
allowed at a time. 

Allan Day. A great children's festival celebrated on the 
nearest Saturday to Halloween in Penzance and St. Ives, both 
in Cornwall County, England. The fruiterers then display in 
their windows very large apples, known locally as " Allan" apples. 
The eating of them is supposed to bring good luck. The girls 
and boys put them under their pillows at night, expecting to 
dream of their future husband or wife. The fulfilment of the 
dream depends upon the silence observed before eating the apple 
next morning. The full ritual involves rising before dawn and 
sitting under a tree clad in the night-dress only and then par- 
taking of the apple. The future consort ought then fb make his 
or her appearance. Moreover, if the sitter experiences no cold, 
the same immunity from cold will continue throughout the 
winter. (Ditchfield, p. 171.) 

All Saints' Day. November 1, the eve of All Souls' Day. 
The Greek Church so eai^ly as the fourth century kept a feast of 
all martyrs and saints on the first Sunday of Pentecost. The 
object of this day was in its inception probably to do honor in 
bulk to all the lesser saints who could not have a feast specially 



28 CURIOSITIES OF 

set apart for them, as well as to all holy men and martyrs whose 
record had not survived. A sermon of St. Chrysostom's delivered 
on this feast is still extant. In the West All Saints' Day was 
introduced by Pope Boniface lY. in the seventh century on the 
occasion of the conversion of the Roman Pantheon into a Chris- 
tian church dedicated to the Yirgin and all the martyrs. The 
anniversary of this event was kept on May 13. But when 
Gregory III., about November 1, 731, consecrated a chapel in 
St. Peter's Church in honor of all the saints, the date of the 
feast of All Saints was shifted, and it has ever since been No- 
vember 1. From about the middle of the ninth century its ob^ 
servance became general throughout the West. The festival has 
been retained by the Anglican Church. A correspondent of the 
Gentleman' s Magazine (1788, vol. Iviii. p. 602) alludes to a cus- 
tom prevaiHng among English Roman CathoHcs of illuminating 
some of their grounds on All Saints' Night, the ctc of All Souls', 
by bearing around them bundles of straw or other fit material 
kindled into a blaze. This ceremony is called a Tinley, and is an 
emblematical lighting of souls out of purgatory. 

In Austria it is the faith of the peasantry (and even some of 
higher position) that on All Souls' Eve, at midnight, any one 
visiting the cemetery will see a procession of the dead drawing 
after them those who are to die during the coming year. There 
is a gloomy drama founded on it, which is still acted on every 
All Souls' Eve in the people's theatre at Yienna. It is called 
" The Miller and his Child." The miller has a lovely daughter, 
the daughter a lover: the miller obstinately opposes the mar- 
riage. After some years of despair the youth goes to the church- 
yard at midnight and sees the spectral train, and following it the 
cruel miller. The miller, then, will die during the year. The 
drama might have passed at this point from the graveyard to 
the marriage bells ; but it would never be allowed in Austria 
that young people should be so encouraged to look forward cheer- 
fully to the demise of parents, however cruel; and therefore the 
youth sees following close to the miller — himself. In the course 
of the year the poor girl loses both father and lover. During the 
performance of this drama the audience is generally bathed in 
tears, some persons sobbing painfully. It is evidently no fiction 
to them ; and it is impossible not to believe that the heaping of 
their friends' graves with wreaths next day is in part due to the 
surviving belief that the dead have some awful power over the 
living, which is generally exerted for evil. 

All Souls' Day. A festival of the Eoman Catholic Church 
(November 2) distinguished by solemn commemoration of and 
prayer for all the souls in purgatory. The mass said on that day 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 29 

is alwnys the mass of the dead, and priests are obliged to recite 
in private the matins and lauds from the office of the dead. This 
solemnity owes its origin to the Abbot Odilon of Cluny, who 
instituted it for all the monasteries of his congregation in the 
year 998. Some authorities see traces of at least a local celebra- 
tion of this day before Odilon's time. With the Greeks Saturday 
was a day of special prayer for the dead, particularly the Satur- 
day before Lent and the one before Pentecost. 

The observance of All Souls' Day after its establishment was 
deemed of such importance that in the event of its falling on 
Sunday it was ordered not to be postponed till Monday, as 
happens with some other festivals, but to take place on the 
previous Saturday, so that the souls in purgatory should not 
have the ministrations in their behalf unnecessarily postponed. 
Thus All Saints' and All Souls' Days were occasionally celebrated 
together. 

In ancient times it was customary for criers dressed in black 
to parade the streets, ringing a bell of mournful sound and call- 
ing on all good Christians to remember the poor souls in pur- 
gatory and join in prayer for their relief In Southern Italy, 
notably in Salerno, there was another ancient custom, which 
was put an end to in the fifteenth century because it was thought 
to savor of paganism. Every family used to spread a table 
abundantly for the regalement of the souls of its dead members 
on their way from purgatory. All then spent the day at church, 
leaving the house open, and if any of the food remained on the 
table when they came back it was an ill omen. Curiously 
enough, large numbers of thieves used to resort to the city at 
this time, and there was seldom any of the food left to presage 
evil. A story strangely like this is told in the Apocryphal book 
of Bel and the Dragon. 

All Souls' Day is a natural corollary to its predecessor All 
Saints' Day (IN'ovember 1). That is a day dedicated specially to 
all the faithful dead who have achieved paradise. This is a day 
dedicated specially to the faithful dead who still remain in pur- 
gatory. Nevertheless, like most Christian festivals, it is a re- 
habilitation of a pagan feast. Days specially set apart for cere- 
monies in honor of the dead are common to humanity. Even 
in China and in Japan there is a feast of the dead, known best 
under the alternative name of Feast of Lanterns. What is 
more to the point, the very dates of l!^ovember 1 and November 
2 were the dates on which our Druidical ancestors celebrated 
their festivals of the dead. It was then that the god Samhan 
was held to pass judgment upon the souls of the defunct. (See 
Halloween and Decoration Day.) 

All Souls' Day possesses a peculiar sanctity for all who have 



30 CURIOSITIES OF 

ever felt the poetry which underlies the services of the Catholic 
Church. In the toil and moil of life we too easily forget the 
dead, or remember them only with a sense of loss instead of 
gratitude. Hence it seems well that once in the year an oppor- 
tunity should be afforded for dwelling on them in a different 
way, for recalling all that endeared them to us, which often 
means all that has lent our past life its emotional value, for 
drawing close to them in the spiritual bonds which according to 
the Catholic Church are not severed by death, and for offering 
them that pious meed of prayer which, the same authority 
guarantees, will shorten their stay in purgatory and open out to 
them the sooner the final glory and peace of paradise. 

In nothing does the strange contrast of feeling appear more 
strongly than in the different ways in which this day is celebrated 
in countries or districts which are equally Eoman Catholic in 
their profession of faith. In all, the religious services are sub- 
stantially the same ; masses for the dead are read, the " Dies 
Irse" is sung, and the prayer " Eternal rest grant them, O Lord, 
and let perpetual life shine upon them," rises from thousands of 
hearts as well as lips. But outside the church nothing can be 
more unlike than the bearing of the worshippers. 

In France the Jour des Morts, as it is generally known, is a 
decorous, pathetic, and beautiful occasion among all believers. 
For two or three weeks before the day arrives the shop- 
windows and the news-venders' kiosks are laden with wreaths 
and garlands of immortelles, some in their natural color, some 
dyed blue, pink, or purple. On All Saints' the people stream to 
the cemeteries. Thousands of people, thousands of wreaths. 
I'he cemeteries are one mass of brilliant color, of moving 
throngs, for not even the remotest corner of the potter's field is 
neglected. Above the dust of the pauper as well as of the 
prince is left some token of remembrance. Pains are taken that 
no graves of friends and relatives are neglected, lest their spirits 
should have their feelings hurt during their visit by perceiving 
this neglect. The children, especially, are encouraged to delight 
in the thought of pleasing the little dead brother, sister, or friend 
by making the tiny mounds that mark their resting-places gay 
and bright-looking. 

The higher classes behave with the quietude and self-restraint 
of well-bred people everywhere. But down among the common 
people are manifested the emotions of the heart, sad remem- 
brance, reawakened grief, love o-utlasting its object. 

It is true that even into the midst of this pathetic ceremony 
the Parisians sometimes manage to obtrude politics. On No- 
vember 2, 1868, a strange scene was enacted in the cemetery 
of Montmartre. The Empire was then at the height of its 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 31 

unpopularity. A large number of its enemies came bearing 
flowers to seek for the tomb of Alphonse Baudin, the repre- 
sentative of the people who had died at the barricades on 
December 2, 1851. For seventeen years this tomb had been 
reported lost. But thousands of eager searchers soon located it, 
and it was covered with a pyramid of immortelles and other 
flowers. Eevolutionary speeches were made, and there were some 
conflicts with the police. Next morning some of the liberal 
journals opened a subscription-list for a monument to Baudin. 
But the movement was stopped by the Imperial government, 
and several of the editors were fined. 

Scenes of this sort, however, are infrequent, and occur only 
among unbelievers. Now contrast the Frenchman with the 
Southern Italian. 

Nothing can be more gruesome, incongruous, and flippant — to 
the Northern mind — than the All Souls' celebrations in Naples. 
The Saturday Beview of January 7, 1888, gives an account of 
these which is as true to-day as it was then : 

" In Naples All Souls' Day is regarded as a holiday, and the 
visit of the families to the churchyard for the purpose of deco- 
rating the graves degenerates into a pleasure-party. Metal gar- 
lands are chiefly used for the purpose ; and, though they are more 
durable, they hardly possess the charm of real leaves and flowers. 
They may, however, be regarded as symbolic of the behavior, if 
not always of the feelings, of those who offer them. On the 
way to the cemetery a decent sobriety is observed, and the 
various families usually remain separate ; but on the return 
general sociability and mirth are the rule. The roadside is 
lined with inns, which are better filled on this than any other 
day in the year; and from all of them the sound of singing and 
dancing may be heard. Indeed, it is by no means uncommon 
for a young Neapolitan to say to a friend, ' We are going to 
visit our mother's grave to-morrow, and on our way back we 
shall stop at such or such an inn ;' which means, If you like to 
come there, you can dance with my sister. To an Englishman 
no celebration of the day seems a better thing. If we forget 
our dead, we do not make their memory the excuse for a 
jollification. 

" It is not, however, in this point alone that a difference of 
sentiment exists. The whole way in which the Neapolitans 
treat the bodies of the dead fills us with disgust. To exhume a 
corpse a year or two after it has been buried, to have the 
skeleton taken to pieces and the bones carefully cleaned, would 
seem to us a wanton outrage ; the wealthy Neapolitan who 
neglects to have this done for his kindred is regarded as heart- 
less. To carry about the prepared bones of a pet child, and to 



32 CURIOSITIES OF 

place them in a sealed casket on the drawing-room mantel-piece, 
seems to us simply shocking; in Southern Italy it has been 
regarded as a most pathetic expression of sorrow. But the 
height of what appears to us grotesque horror has been reached 
by a widower, who has the embalmed corj^se of his wife dressed 
anew once a year in fresh and gorgeous apparel, and seizes the 
opportunity to present it with a new ring or bracelet. 

" In the villages, too, where the day is observed with a certain 
seriousness, grotesque incidents are apt to mar, for the stranger 
at least, the sense of mournful calm which the religious services 
excite. In one of the churches of Eavello, for example, a dis- 
gusting effigy is placed before the high altar, instead of the 
shrouded structure in which, during the funeral service, the 
coffin is placed. The very skill with which it is made renders 
it the more repulsive. The fallen cheeks and livid hue are 
rendered with what seems, in the half-light, a frightful realism ; 
and it is clad in the court dress of some former century, in a 
suit embroidered with gold, red stockings, and pointed shoes. 
Or is it perhaps a real mummy? The writer did not pause to 
inquire. In fact, the South Italian seems to be utterly des- 
titute of the feeling which prompts us to conceal as far as 
possible, even from our imaginations, all that is revolting in 
death." 

In France the Jour des Morts is kept utterly distinct from La 
Toussaint, or All Saints' Day, which occurs on November 1. 
This is also true of Italy. But in many other European 
Catholic countries the decorating of graves begins on All Saints' 
Day, either because it is looked upon as the Eve of All Souls', 
or from the pious and complimentary hope that the dead in 
whom the celebrant is interested may have already passed out 
of the penitential flames of purgatory into the company of the 
blessed. In a Catholic Alpine village, as soon as the mass has 
been heard on All Saints', the women of the family busy them- 
selves with weaving wreaths of evergreens, into which any 
flowers that are still hardy enough to blossom are eagerly 
worked. In the afternoon these are carried to the churchyard 
and laid upon the graves with almost silent reverence; and in 
the evening a lamp is placed at the foot of the last resting- 
place of every departed friend. At such a time the cemetery is 
a strange sight, with the garlands, the lights, and the groups of 
mourners kneeling, often in the snow. 

Almanac Day (November 22). Formerly this was a notable 
occasion at Stationers' Hall, London. The Stationers' Company 
originally enjoyed a monopoly of the printing of books. Even 
after this privilege had been withdrawn from them they claimed 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 33 

the exclusive right of issuing almanacs. Not till 1775 was this 
claim successfully contested by one Thomas Carnan, a book- 
seller in St. Paul's Churchyard. But for long afterwards, despite 
their loss of what they considered a vested right, the almanacs 
of the Stationers' Company continued to be the standard publi- 
cations in this sort, the most popular and the most eagerly 
sought for. Knight's "London" (1841) thus describes the scene 
on Almanac Day in Stationers' Hall: "All over the long tables 
that extend through the hall, which is of considerable size, and 
piled up in tall heaps on the floor, are canvas bales or bags in- 
numerable. This is the 22d of November. The doors are locked 
as yet, but will be opened presently for a novel scene. The 
clock strikes, wide asunder start the gates, and in they come, a 
whole army of porters, darting hither and thither, and seizing 
the said bags, in many instances as big as themselves. Before 
we can well understand what is the matter, men and bags have 
alike vanished — the hall is clear ; another hour or two, and the 
contents of the latter will be flying along railways, east, west, 
north, and south. . . . Yes, they are all almanacs : those bags 
contain nothing but almanacs." Even now on November 22 in 
some of the byways of London the cry once so familiar in all 
the principal streets, "Almanacs for the ensuing year!" is 
occasionally heard from peripatetic peddlers. The Stationers' 
Company still keep up the old practice of sending an early copy 
of each of their almanacs to the Archbishop of Canterbury on 
publication-day. This custom originated in the early part of 
the eighteenth century, while Edward Tenison was archbishop. 
A near relative of his was Master of the Stationers' Company. 
On one Lord Mayor's Day the latter, who had achieved the 
dignity of Alderman, was awaiting in the civic barge at West- 
minster Stairs the return of the Mayor from Westminster Hall. 
As time hung heavy, he and bis fellow-aldermen rowed over to 
Lambeth Palace to call^n Cousin Edward, who hospitably en- 
tertained them with a pint of wine apiece and the watermen 
with hot spiced ale and bread and cheese. This grew into a 
settled custom year by year, until the abolition of the Mayor's 
procession by water, and year by year the archiepiscopal 
hospitality was acknowledged by the Stationers' Company by 
presenting His Grace with copies of their several almanacs as 
soon as published. 

Altnohada. (Sp., " Pillow.") A ceremony at the court of 
Madrid which dates back to the reign of Charles Y. It consists 
in conferring the rank of grandee upon members of the Spanish 
nobility. It is thus described by an eye-witness in October, 1888, 
the only Almohada which has been held during the reign of 

3 



34 CURIOSITIES OF 

Alfonso XIII.: " On the afternoon of the appointed day the gran- 
dees who happened to be residing at the time in the city assem- 
bled in the small throne-room of the palace and took their seats 
on carved stools upholstered with crimson velvet cushions, which 
were ranged on either side of the room at right angles with the 
throne, the gentlemen being on the right and the ladies on the 
left thereof Punctually at three o'clock the queen regent made 
her entry in state, accompanied by her sisters-in-law and attended 
by the proud Duchess of Fernan-Nunez, her Camarera-Mayor, 
or Grand Mistress of the Robes, by the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, 
who is her Mayordomo- Mayor, or Grand Marshal of the Court, 
and by other great officers of her household. As soon as she 
had taken her seat on the throne she turned to the right and the 
left with a slight inclination of her head, and, addressing the 
grandees present, exclaimed, ' Be seated.' A moment afterwards 
the folding doors at the farther end of the room were thrown 
open, and, preceded by a chamberlain and conducted by the 
two grandees appointed to act as sponsors, the postulant for ad- 
mission to the grandezza made his appearance, and, after bowing 
profoundly three times, — once on entering the royal presence, 
once on reaching the centre of the room, and once on approach- 
ing the throne, — stood still and awaited her majesty's orders. A 
stool and crimson velvet cushion having been brought and placed 
on the lowest step of the royal dais, the queen commanded that 
the candidate should be seated, which he did with another low 
obeisance. Christina then addressed a few complimentary words 
to him, recalling the services rendered by his familj^ to the dy- 
nasty in times gone by, and, after extending her hand to be 
kissed, signified her desire that he should assume his place among 
his peers. Eetiring backward from the royal presence, he was, 
in the first place, conducted by his sponsors to the side of the 
hall occupied by the ladies of grandee rank, to whom he made a 
low bow, and then to that of the men, whom he saluted in a 
similar manner. He thereupon put his hat on his head, his ex- 
ample being instantaneously followed by every grandee present, 
and all remained covered until, his stool and cushion having been 
removed from the steps of the throne and placed beside those of 
his peers, the newly elected grandee had seated himself thereon. 
The object which the grandees have in view in putting on their 
hats during this portion of the ceremony is to perpetuate and to 
assert their ancient and traditional privilege of remaining cov- 
ered in the presence of royalty. It is they alone who represent 
the old blue blood of Spain and from whose number the great 
officers of the royal household are almost exclusively selected. 
A grandee and a grandesse are daily in attendance on the mon- 
arch as chamberlain and as lady-in-waiting, and almost as many 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 35 

nobiliary quarterings are required for- admission to the grandezza 
as to the sovereign Order of Knighthood of Malta." 

Altar. (Lat. altare, " an altar," from alius, " high.") A place or 
object for sacrifice, adoration, or other priestly ofiice. The earliest 
altars were turf mounds, large flat- topped stones, or other rude 
elevations, natural or artificial. When temples came to be built, 
altars were generally made of stone, marble, or metal. Greek 
and Eoman altars were circular, square, or triangular in form, 
and were highly ornamented. In the Jewish worship two altars 
were used, the altar of burnt-offering and the altar of incense. 
Both were made of shittim wood, the first overlaid with brazen 
plates and the latter with gold. In the primitive Christian Church 
the altar was usually of wood. But during the persecutions the 
tombs of martyrs in the Catacombs were used as altars. Hence 
the Catholic Church requires that the altar must either consist 
of stone or contain an altar stone large enough for the sacred 
vessels to stand upon. Hence also its general likeness in form to 
a sarcophagus. The altar stone is consecrated by the bishop or 
a specially licensed abbot, who anoints it with chrism, and fre- 
quently seals up certain rehcs in a small cavity made for the 
purpose. Such relics were at one time absolutely necessary. 
The east end of a church, where possible, is the preferable posi- 
tion, so that worshippers may face towards the east, as a re- 
minder of Christ, " the Dayspring and the Resurrection." Here 
undoubtedly is a reminiscence of the sun-worship which was the 
primitive cult of our Aryan ancestors. Both Greeks and Romans 
turned their faces to the east when praying. Originally there 
was one altar in each church dedicated to the patron saint. But 
as other relics than those of the patron were added to a church, 
special altars were raised and consecrated to them. In the 
Reformed Churches only one altar is used. The zeal of the early 
Reformers frequently carried them so far as to abolish the altar 
entirely. In Switzerland it was replaced by a plain communion- 
table, and in Holland and Scotland even this communionrtable 
was not tolerated except when communion was actually cele- 
brated. 

Amable, St. (died 475). One of the early apostles of Chris- 
tianity in France. He is the patron of Riom, France, where 
his festival, June 11, is celebrated with a curious ceremonial that 
attracts large crowds from the neighboring peasantry. A pro- 
cession is formed in which the most important feature is a wax 
wheel several feet in diameter decorated with ribbons. This is 
borne in the air by the priests, who from time to time make it 
turn on its axle, to the great edification of the faithful. The 



36 CURIOSITIES OF 

wheel, it appears, is made by the churchwardens from a thread 
of wax which is coiled into a circular form. The thread is just 
long enough to measure around the town of Eiom. It is evident, 
therefore, that this is a survival of wheel- worship (see Wheel of 
Fire) transferred from the time of the summer solstice to the 
festival of the patron saint. We may also surmise that origi- 
nally the wheel was carried round the town, so as to protect it 
from all evil influences, as is done to this day in the burning of 
the Clavie at Burghead. By some curious mutation, however, 
the wax thread of the length of the circuit was substituted. 
The wheel is now carried to the neighboring village of Marsat, 
where it is received by the priests of the chapel of Notre-Dame 
as an oifering to the ihonor of the blessed Virgin Mary, mother 
of Jesus. Another wheel, made by the peasants of flowers, also 
capable of revolving on its axis, is carried in the procession. 

Ambrose, St. The festival of this saint is celebrated on 
December 7, the day on which he was ordained bishop. It is 
especially observed in Milan, of which city he is the patron saint. 

He was one of the four Latin Fathers of the Church. He was 
born at Treves in Graul. It is related that when an infant a 
swarm of bees alighted on his mouth without doing him any 
harm, thus indicating his future eloquence. The same story, 
it will be remembered, was told of Plato and of Archilochus. 
Ambrose studied at Eome and then removed to Milan. Shortly 
after, the bishop of that city died, and a great dispute arose be- 
tween the Catholics and the Arians as to who should succeed him. 
Ambrose pacified the disputants by his eloquence. Then a child's 
voice was heard crying, "Ambrose shall be bishop;" and although 
he protested, saying that he had not even been baptized, the 
whole assembly took up the cry, his objections were overruled, 
the ceremony of baptism was performed on the spot, and eight 
days afterwards he was consecrated bishop. He threw his whole 
soul into the performance of his duties, allowing no respect of 
persons to interfere with them. On one occasion the Emperor 
Theodosius, after having been guilty of a general massacre of 
the insurgents in Thessalonica, presented himself to worship in 
the cathedral, but St. Ambrose sternly refused him admittance 
until he had performed public penance for his sin. In 387 he 
founded the church now known as the basilica of Sant' Am- 
brogio Maggiore at Milan, which he dedicated to all the saints. 
At the consecration of this church the relics of SS. Gervasius 
and Protasius were miraculously revealed to him. Many other 
wonderful things are recorded about this saint. On one occasion 
a heretic who came to scoff at his preaching saw an angel stand- 
ing by his side and prompting him, and was at once converted to 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



37 



the truth. At another time, while celebrating mass, he fell into 
a trance and beheld the burial of St. Martin of Tours, then 
taking place in France. When he was on his death-bed, the 
Bishop of Yercelli, who was attending him, fell asleep, but an 
angel awoke him in time to administer the last sacraments, and 
then all present beheld St. Ambrose carried up to heaven in the 
arms of angels. This was on April 4, 397. He is represented as 




St. Ambrose Enthroned. 
(From a German print of the fifteenth century.) 



a mitred bishop with a crosier. Sometimes a beehive is at his 
feet, but his usual attribute is a knotted scourge with three 
thongs. 

The body of St. Ambrose was originally interred near the 
relics of SS. Gorvasius and Protasius in the basilica of St. 
Ambrose, Milan. It now reposes in a vault under the high 
altar. " God," says Alban Butler, " was pleased to honor him by 
manifesting that through his intercession he protected the state 
against the idolaters." He instances the case of Eadagaesus, 



38 CURIOSITIES OF 

King of the Goths, who in 450 invaded Italy, swearing to sacri- 
fice all the Komans before bis gods. He quotes from Tillemont : 
" Eadagsesus besieged Florence. This city was reduced to the 
utmost straits, when St. Ambrose, who had once retired thither 
(and who had now been dead nine years), appeared to a person 
of the house where he had lodged, and promised him that the 
city should be delivered from the enemy on the next day. The 
man told it to the inhabitants, who took courage and resumed 
the hopes which they had quite lost, and on the next day came 
Stilicho with his army. Paulinus, who relates this, learned it 
from a lady who lived at Florence." Stilicho, it will be remem- 
bered, won a complete victory, and captured Eadagsesus and his 
two sons and put them to death. 

Amen Corner. A spot in Paternoster Eow, London. Prior 
to the Eeformation an annual procession to St. Paul's Cathedral 
used to be performed on Corpus Christi Day. Mustering at the 
end of Cheapside, the clergy there commenced the chanting of 
the Our Father, or Paternoster, through the whole length of 
the street, hence called Paternoster Eow, so timing themselves 
that the Amen would be reached at Amen Corner. Then began 
the Ave Maria as they turned down Ave Maria Lane. After 
crossing Ludgate Hill they chanted the Credo in Creed Lane. 
It appears from Stow's " London" that the amen to the creed, 
and hence the end of the chanting, was pronounced in Amen 
Lane, which he says " is lately added to" Creed Lane. Amen 
Lane, however, no longer exists. 

Ampulla. The old Eoman, and still the ecclesiastical, name 
for a vial or bottle of peculiar semiglobular nhape, usually with 
two handles. The Eomans kept their wHne in ampullae of glass 
or earthenware, as also the oil with which they anointed them- 
selves after bathing. In modern ecclesiastical usage the term is 
applied to the vessels holding the sacramental wine and water, 
and to the cruets of precious metal holding the consecrated oil or 
chrism used in extreme unction, at the coronation of kings, and 
in other functions. The name and the thing are retained in the 
EngUsh coronation service. Among the regalia preserved in 
the Tower of London is the golden ampulla in the form of an 
eagle, richly chased, which is said to have been made expressly 
for the coronation of Charles II, 

The anointing was a peculiarly sacred ceremony, used in the 
earliest time only for the kings of England, France, Jerusalem, 
and Sicily. Subsequently the kings of Scotland obtained the 
privilege of anointing by special grant from the Pope. The 
English kings were anointed, not with holy oil, but with a 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 39 | 

specially prepared cream, wliich was consecrated by the primate, 
or by some bishop deputed by him, and the custom continued 
after the Eeformation. Thus the cream used for anointing 
Charles I. was consecrated by Laud, then Bishop of St, David's. 

In France, the sacred ampulla (la sainte ampoule) containing 
the balm with which the kings were anointed was kept in the 
tomb of St. Eemy in the cathedral of Eheims. According to 
legend, a legend much younger than the pretended fact it com- ; 
memorates, this ampulla was brought down from heaven by a ^ 

dove, in answer to the prayer of St. Eemy, to serve at the bap- 5 

tism and coronation of King Clovis in 496. Neither St. Eemy 
himself, however, nor any of his contemporaries mentions the 
miracle, which appears to have been a ninth-century invention. 
The ampulla was always used at the coronation of French kings 
down to Charles X. It was a glass vial forty-one millimetres 
high, with an aperture sixteen millimetres in circumference, 
filled with a compound of oil and balm " thick and slab," which 
in the end had become solidified and of a reddish-brown color. 
At the ceremony of coronation the High Prior of St. Eemy 
hung the rich shrine that contained it about his neck, and by 
means of a gold needle scooped out a particle which he placed 
upon the monarch's brow. 

The legend goes on to say that there was such a relation 
between the holy vial and the life of the reigning king that the 
bulk of the ointment it contained diminished if his health 
happened to be impaired. In 1793 the revolutionists under Euhl, . ^ 
then appointed commissioner in the department of Marne, -- - 
broke this relic to pieces in the public square of Eheims. But 
it is said that the Abbe Seraine, cure of St. Eemy, secreted a 
part of the contents in a crystal vessel which was providentially 
discovered in time for the coronation of Charles X. in 1825. 
This is still preserved in a silver gilt shrine in Eheims Cathedral, 
the revolutionists of 1848 contemptuously allowing it to remain '^ 
in its ancient tabernacle. 

J^ Amuck or Amok. A species of semi-voluntary insanity 
which is peculiar to the Malays of the Indian Archipelago. The 
curious feature about it is that, though the result of a momen- 
tary passion, it seems to depend, in the Malay's mind, on a -^^.^ 
belief that to run amok is, under certain circumstances, the ^ 
right thing to do. The circumstance may be any accident or 
sorrow which overwhelms a man with uncontrollable emotion. 
His grief then takes the form of violent and indiscriminate ' 
anger against the whole human race. With drawn kris he rushes',- - 
out to slay or be slain. His frenzied appearance proclaims his<3^ ' 
condition. " Amok ! Amok !" shriek the people, as they trample 

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40 CURIOSITIES OF 

over each other in their hurry to save their lives. The alarm 
spreads far and wide. The hand of every Mala}^ springs to the 
twisted band of his sheath, to draw forth the dagger that hangs 
by his side ; the police clutch their weapons ; the Europeans 
seize their guns ; every eye, every nerve, is strained for the 
coming peril. "Amok! Amok!" — a wild shriek, a groan, a cry 
for mercy, and on rushes the maniac with the bloody kris in his 
hand, striking right and left, heedless of friend or foe. He is pur- 
sued by a number of people armed with spears, daggers, knives, 
guns, and clubs, who grow as madly excited as the wild creature 
they chase. Brandishing his ruddy blade, the ghastly Malay, 
perhaps himself gashed with cuts and riddled with bullets, dashes 
along in his fury, marking his course with his own blood and 
that of fresh victims. And so he goes on and on till he falls 
from some shot, or sinks from exhaustion, to be despatched by 
the ready daggers of his chasers. Or perhaps, cut off and 
hemmed in, the amok-runner, dripping with blood, stands at bay 
in some house or against a wall, glaring with bloodshot eyes, 
and, holding out his stained kris, defies any one to approach. 
Then the police bring into use a huge short-pronged pitchfork, 
with which they are provided in the Straits Settlement, deftly 
thrusting at him till he is caught by the throat, pinned to the 
wall, and held there by powerful arms. His kris having been 
wrested from him, he is quickly pinioned, and, if he does not 
die of his wounds, is tried and executed by native or British 
laws. 

The nearest thing in nature to a Malay running amok is the 
conduct of an elephant who goes "must." Both do all the 
violent injury in their power without notice or warning. 
Neither is usually spared when he returns to a calmer frame of 
mind, by way of seeing whether his reformation will endure or 
whether he will relapse. 

Andisop. Train tells us in his " History of the Isle of Man" 
(1845, vol. ii. p. 127) that the fiddlers go round from house to 
house in the latter part of the night for two or three weeks be- 
fore Christmas, playing a tune called the Andisop. On their 
way they stop before particular houses, wish the inmates indi- 
vidually good-morning, call the hour, then report the state of the 
weather, and, after receiving a small gratuity, move on to the 
next halting-place. 

Andrew, St., the Apostle, patron of Scotland and of Eussia. 
His feast is celebrated on November 30, the reputed day of his 
death. Scripture informs us that he was the son of Jonas, a 
fisherman of Bethsaida in Galilee, and the brother of Simon 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



41 



Peter. A disciple of John the Baptist, he followed Jesus upon 
the Baptist's pointing him out with the words " Behold the Lamb 
of God!" (John i. 35-40.) 
Andrew introduced his 
brother to Jesus, a circum- 
stance which has invested 
him with special eminence. 
They abode a day with the 
Saviour, and subsequently 
accompanied him to the mar- 
riage at Cana, after which 
they returned to their trade 
as fishermen. Some months 
later, Jesus, meeting them 
while they were fishing, 
called them to him, prom- 
ising to make them fishers 
of men. Thereupon they left 
their nets and followed him. 
(Matt. iv. 19, 20.) After the 
Ascension there is no further 
scriptural mention of St. An- 
drew, but tradition assigns 
Scythia, Greece, and Thrace 
as the scenes of his mission- 
ary labors, and asserts that 
he was martyred at Patrse, 
in Achaia, on November 30, 
A.D. 70. The Eoman pro-^ 

consul, it is said, angered because he had converted his wife Maxi- 
milla, caused him to be first flogged and then crucified. The cross 
upon which he sufi^ered was of the form called decussate, — i.e., 
shaped like the letter X. To this day a cross of that kind is called 
by his name. He was fastened to it by cords instead of nails, to 
produce a lingering death by hunger and thirst. The legend goes 
on to say that Maximilla caused the body to be decently interred, 
and that for many years manna came out from his tomb, together 
with a fragrant oil, and when these were abundant the crops for 
that season were good, but if not the crops also were scanty. 
The Emperor Constantine removed the body to Constantinople 
and placed it in a church consecrated to the Twelve Apostles. 
Thirty years after the death of Constantine, in 368, a Greek 
monk named Eegulus, or Eule, conveyed the body to Scotland, 
and reburied it on the eastern coast of Fife, where he built a 
church, and here afterwards arose the city and cathedral of St. 
Andrew. In the mediaeval chap-book entitled " The Seven Cham- 




Martyrdom op St. Andrew. 
(From an old print.) 



42 CURIOSITIES OF 

pions of Christendom," which is purely a secular performance, 
full of astounding anachronisms, a different legend is told. After 
performing prodigies of valor in Thrace, St. Andrew is repre- 
sented as coming to Scotland, then "a rude and heathenish coun- 
try, where the common sort of people inhabited." Although the 
king and the nobility welcomed him, the people put him secretly 
to death ; whereat the king, greatly incensed, raised a power of 
his best resolved knights of war, and put every one to the sword, 
man, woman, and child, that in any manner had consented to the 
champion's martyrdom. So only Christian believers were left in 
Scotland. Subsequently the king appointed a monastery to be 
built on the place where St. Andrew died. 

The cross upon which St. Andrew was crucified is one of the 
most precious relics of the church of St. Victor (^. v.') in Mar- 
seilles. It was brought from Patmos by the Burgondes, whose 
king took Marseilles about the year 400 and deposited this relic 
in St. Victor. Fearing its profanation during an invasion of the 
Saracens, St. Eusebia, the abbess, hid it in a place known only to 
herself and her martyred companions. Lost for some centuries, 
it w^as supposed to have been seized by the infidels, until, after 
having at three different times during mass a vision of its place 
of concealment, the pious Hugues de Glacius searched the spot 
indicated, and, amid a heap of rubbish, found the sacred wood. 

From time immemorial St. Andrew has been the patron of 
Scotland. His day, which is also known as Andrys Day, Androiss 
Mess, and Andermess, is made the occasion of banquets, not only 
at home, but wherever in foreign ports enough Scotsmen can be 
mustered to partake of the festivity. In London a procession 
of Scots used to be held, a singed sheep's head being borne in the 
van. The use of sheep's head, boiled, baked, or singed, began in 
the village of Duddington, a mile or so out from Edinburgh, 
whither the citizens of the metropohs were wont to resort on 
summer days for gastronomic purposes. It is supposed that the 
custom arose from the practice of slaughtering for the market 
the sheep fed on the neighboring hill. The carcasses were sent 
to town, the head, etc., being left to be consumed in the place. 
In the parish of Eastling, in Kent, England, the yearly diversion 
of squirrel-hunting took place on St. Andrew's Lay. Peasants 
and laborers would assemble together armed with guns, clubs, 
poles, and other weapons, and under pretence of hunting squir- 
rels would parade through the woods and grounds with loud 
shoutings and kill every species of game, squirrels, hares, pheas- 
ants, or partridges, that came in their way, doing much injury to 
trees and hedges, and finally ending the day with a carousal at 
the ale-houses. • 

Luther in his " Table-Talk" describes how on the evening of 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 43 

the feast of St. Andrew the young maids in Germany would 
strip themselves naked and utter the following prayer : " Deus, 
Deus meus, o Sancte Andrea, effice ut bonum pium acquiram 
virum ; hodie mihi ostende qualis sit cui me in uxorem ducere 
debet" (" God, my God, O Saint Andrew, bring it about that 
I may obtain a good affectionate husband ; show me to-day what 
manner of man it is that shall lead me to the altar"). Probably 
there is an allusion to this custom in "The Popish Kingdom" of 
Naogeorgus, thus translated by Barnaby Googe : 

To Andrew all the lovers and the lustie wooers come, 
Beleeving through his aid and certaine ceremonies done 
(While as to him they presentes bring, and conjure all the night) 
To have good lucke, and to obtaine their chiefe and sweete delight. 

A somewhat analogous ceremony is practised in England on 
St. Agnes' Eve (^. v.). 

A pretty German superstition that still survives locally on St. 
Andrew's Day is the following : 

To learn which of the persons present love each other, or will 
one day be united, a vessel with pure water is set on the table, 
and there are placed, to float upon the water, little cups of silver- 
foil, inscribed with the names of those whose fortune is to be 
determined. If a youth's cup advances to a maiden's, or a 
maiden's to a youth's, it is worth while to note which makes 
the chief advances ; and if they eventually cling together, they 
will be sweethearts. But little cups must also be set floating 
marked as priests ; and it is only when the youth and the maid 
coming together get a priest between them that they can look 
forward with any certainty to marriage. 

Angelus. The name given to the Catholic practice of re- 
citing at morning, noon, and evening three Hail Marys, together 
with sentences and a collect expressive of rejoicing trust in the 
mystery of the Incarnation. The first sentence of the collect 
begins, " Angelus Domini nuntiavit Marise" (" The angel of the 
Lord announced unto Mary"). Hence the name of the devotion. 
In Catholic countries a bell called the Angelus rings at the 
several hours six a.m., twelve m., and six p.m. The evening 
Angelus had the earliest origin. Introduced by Pope John 
XXII. in 1326, he ordered that the church bells should sound at 
the hour of curfew and that parishioners at this bell-stroke should, 
on bended knees, repeat three times the angel's salutation to the 
Virgin Mary, thus gaining ten days' indulgence. In 1369 it was 
ordained that at dawn (m aurora diet) there should be three 
bell-strokes, and that whoever hearing said three aves and as 
many paternosters should obtain twenty days' indulgence. In 



44 CURIOSITIES OF 

1472 Louis XI. ordered the Angelus to be repeated three times 
a day, and obtained a papal decree that whoever obeyed the 
order should thereby acquire three hundred additional days of 
indulgence. This threefold daily Angelus had also been recom- 
mended as early as 1423 in Mainz and Cologne, in Breslau in 
1416, etc. It has continued, with only slight modification in the 
order of the prayers, up to the present day. Millet's famous 
picture represents the evening Angelus. 

Anne, St., mother of the Virgin. She is commemorated on 
July 26, the reputed anniversary of her death. The patroness 
of Canada, her famous shrine in the church of St. Anne, at the 
little village of Beaupre, about twenty miles below Quebec, is 
the Lourdes of the New World, attracting pilgrims from all 
parts not only of Canada but also of the United States. 

St. Anne, according to the legend, was the wife of Joachim, a 
devout and wealthy man. For a long time the couple were 
childless. Therefore when Joachim on a certain feast-day 
appeared at the temple his offering was refused by the high- 
priest. And he went away into the wilderness and fasted forty 
days. Meanwhile Anne also bewailed her childlessness. And 
while she was praying an angel aj^peared and told her that her 
prayer was answered. Another angel appeared to Joachim with 
the same message. The two met at the Golden Gate. And 
when her time came Anne brought forth a daughter, whom she 
called Mary. 

The body of St. Anne was found in the time of Charlemagne, 
at Apte, in France. A miracle revealed its abiding-place. A 
boy born dumb suddenly spoke, saying, " Here lies the body of 
Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary." This discovery is 
commemorated by a yearly festival at Apte. To account for the 
presence of the relics at that place the legend current at Apte 
says that St. Paul dug St. Anne out of her grave in the Valley 
of Jehoshaphat, and, carrying her to Rome, gave her to St. 
Clement, who made a present of her bones to St. Auspicius, 
Bishop of Apte. There are other legends about these relics, and 
in fact there are other bodies or parts of bodies all claiming to 
be genuine. There is a second head of St. Anne at Chartres, 
brought from the East in the twelfth century by Louis, Count 
of Blois ; a third at Bologna, given by Henry VI. of England 
to Nicholas Albegarti; a fourth at Dtiren, in Germany, brought 
from the Holy Land in 1212; a fifth at Castelbona, in Sicily, 
brought from Lorraine by John de Hieac about a.d. 1468. The 
arms and legs of this saint are relatively more numerous than 
her heads. A noted relic, " a most miraculous and odoriferous 
relic" (John Comnenus : The Pilgrim's Guide to the Holy Maun- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 45 

tain, Venice, 1701), is kept in a silver case set with precious 
stones in the church of St. Anne at Mount Athos, Greece. This 
is the left foot of the saint. If the traveller is anxious to see 
this relic, the monks, having first lighted candles and put on 
their full canonicals, will draw forth the ghastly and shrunken 
limb, which they devoutly kiss. 

The special Canadian devotion to the saint began when the 
original church was built at Beauj^re. The legend runs that in 
1650 or 1651, that is, in the very infancy of the French colony 
in Canada, some Breton sailors, caught in a storm, vowed that if 
the good St. Anne would but bring them safely to land they 
would build her a sanctuary on the spot where their feet first 
touched land. The prayer was granted, the vow was kept. A 
small wooden church was erected. Some years later a little 
child was thrice favored with a heavenly vision near this build- 
ing, and on her third appearance the \^ii'gin commanded the 
little one to tell the people that they should build her a larger 
church on that spot. 

The governor of the colony, M. Aillebout, commenced with 
his own hands the pious work, and laid the first stone in 1658, 
and a habitant of the place, Louis Guimont, sorely afflicted with 
rheumatism, came, grinning with pain, to lay three stones in the 
foundation, in honor, probably, of St. Anne, St. Joachim, and 
their daughter the Yirgin. Instantly he was cured of his rheu- 
matism. That was but the beginning of a long course of 
miracles, continued more than two and a quarter centuries 
already, and still continuing. 

Since 1666, pilgrimages have been frequent to St. Anne de 
Beaupre. On the 30th of March of that year the Marquis de 
Trace}', governor of the colony, went there to return thanks to 
St. Anne for the preservation at sea of the ship which had 
brought him from France and had been nearly wrecked, and in 
August following he again visited the shrine, this time accom- 
panied by Monsignor de Laval, first Bishop of Quebec, and pre- 
sented it with the celebrated painting of St. Anne by Le Brun 
which hangs over the richly adorned high altar, while a rich 
chasuble, embroidered in gold, was presented to the church by 
Anne of Austria, the queen mother of Louis XIY., who had 
worked it with her own hands. 

In 1668 the shrine was enriched by a relic which was nothing 
less than a fragment of a finger of St. Anne. This is still 
retained and carefully preserved. Its exposition, save on St. 
Anne's Bay, is a favor rarely vouchsafed even to the faithful. 

It was long the custom of all ships returning from voyages to 
anchor here and honor Canada's patroness by a broadside. 

In the number of its pilgrims St. Anne de Beaupre compares 



46 CURIOSITIES OF 

favorably with Loretto, JS'otre Dame de Lourdes, and Paray- 
le-Monial. Under the French regime the whole shore was fre- 
quently covered with the wigwams of Indian converts, who 
had paddled their birch-bark canoes from the farthest wilds of 
Canada. The more fervent would crawl on their knees from the 
shore to the altar. 

Ever since that period there has been a steady increase in the 
volume of pilgrims to St. Anne. In one recent year forty thou- 
sand visited the shrine between June and October. The average 
yearly number of pilgrims is from seventy-five thousand to one 
hundred thousand. They come from all parts of the United 
States and Canada, and, as they are of various origins, they speak 
a variety of languages. The Eedemptorist Fathers in charge of 
the church preach in English, French, German, Spanish, Flemish, 
Italian, and Eussian, as the occasion demands. 

The proprietor of the new railroad to Beaupre has not failed 
to secure for it a character thoroughly in accord with its mission. 
On the day of its opening to travel Cardinal Taschereau blessed 
both road and rolling stock, the ceremony of the benediction 
being as interesting as it was novel, including the sprinkling of 
engines, cars, and track with holy water, and the offering up 
of j^rayers for the protection of all that travel by the railway, 
for those that direct it, "that they may be directed in the way 
of God's commandments," and for the passengers, " that, as the 
Ethiopian eunuch was accorded grace while seated on his car, 
so may they obtain eternal joys when their journey of life shall 
come to an end." 

The handsome new church of La Bonne Ste.-Anne was com- 
menced in 1850, has cost from two hundred thousand dollars to a 
quarter of a million, and has been raised by the Pope to the 
dignity of a basilica. It is surrounded by a number of magnifi- 
cent lateral chapels, each the gift of a Canadian diocese. In 
front of the chancel is a splendid statue of St. Anne. 

At intervals along the road there are small chapels, which are 
used but once annually, when the shrines enclosed are exposed to 
receive the votive offerings of processionists winding with stately 
chant along the dusty highway upon St. Anne's Day. 

There are numerous rude ex-voto pictures in the church, repre- 
senting marvellous deliverances of ships in peril through the aid of 
St. Anne, though by far the most interesting features of the sanc- 
tuary are the massive tiers of crutches, sticks, and splints and 
other peculiar contrivances for strengthening structural weak- 
nesses, which have been joyfully cast aside by those who suddenly 
found that they no longer required them. There is a very large 
collection of spectacles and eye-glasses, indicative of the benefits 
derived at the shrine by those who had previouslj^ suffered from 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 47 

weak or defective vision, while a long row of tobacco-pipes and 
another of snuff-boxes testify to the power of the saint in curing 
the habits that called for their former use. A few bracelets illus- 
trate the power of St. Anne in curing the vanity that is princi- 
pally illustrated in the inordinate display of jewelry. No wonder 
that St. Anne has been specially designated the patroness of 
Canada, though it has been ecclesiastically provided that this is 
to be without prejudice to the office of St. Joseph as its patron, 

New York City boasts a famous relic of this saint, — a wrist- 
bone taken from an arm possessed by the Benedictine monastery 
at Rome. The manner of its arrival here is as follows. The 
^rowii; . devotion to the shrine of St. Anne at Beaupre had led 
ie Cardinal Archbishop of Quebec in 1892 to send Monsignor 
fprquis, prothonotary apostolic, on a journey to Bome seeking 
xbr some larger and more important relic of the saint than was 
in possession of the church. Pope Leo was pleased to accord a 
gracious hearing to the ambassador, and, in accordance with a 
papal request, the wrist of St. Anne was given to him by the abbot 
of the Benedictine monastery. It was placed in a small casket 
of bronze, lined with gold, and having a glass top, through which 
the relic could be seen. On his way to Canada Monsignor Mar- 
quis stopped over in New York and permitted the exhibition and 
veneration of the rehc at the church of St. Jean Baptiste. Such 
crowds flocked to the shrine, so many miracles were wrought in 
the way of cures, such was the interest which it awakened among 
the Roman Catholic clergy and people of New York, that the 
good Monsignor was loath to remove it. The relic is brought 
out when sick people want to see it, and the priest touches the 
patient with the glass case. There are a number of prayers and 
much penance in connection with the ceremony, and the cure, 
when it is effected, is, of course, due to faith. This, the most 
famous relic in the country, is watched with the most jealous 
care, especially in view of the many attempts that have been 
made to steal it. There is another but a very minute relic pre- 
served in the church of St. Anne in New York City. (See also" 
AuRAY, Pardon of.) 

Anniversary Week. The name formerly given in New York 
to the week beginning with the last Monday in May. This is the 
week in which the Quakers hold their annual meetings, and it 
gradually became the habit for other rehgionists, as well as for 
political and social agitators and benevolent societies of all sorts, 
to descend upon New York at the same period. " It was a week 
of great interest and excitement," writes George W. Curtis, "and, 
while the newspapers sneered and cheered at many a word spoken, 
the impulse given to public opinion was prodigious. The meet- 



48 CURIOSITIES OF 

ings were of all kinds: religious, charitable, and reformatory, 
from the most conservative and 'respectable' — meetings with 
which no well-ordered citizen was unwilling to have his name 
associated — to those which were alleged to be composed mainly 
of lunatics, fanatics, and long-haired fools, association with which 
was supposed to brand a man as deficient in common sense. The 
missionary meetings, those of the established charities and phil- 
anthropic enterprises, had always a full attendance and an ample 
flow of well-regulated oratory." {Harper's Magazine, vol. Iv. p. 
463.) 

But the seeker of excitement was supposed to find more fun at 
the '• radical" assemblies, and especially at the meetings of the 
Abolitionists and Women's Eights advocates. Of these tLe 
papers published the most exaggerated and ludicrous reports or 
caricatures. 

Now all is changed. Mr. Curtis mourns that even in his time 
" the glory of anniversary week, in New York at least, is gone. 
Except to those interested members of the societies, those to 
whom ' meetings' of any kind are a delight, its return is scarcely 
known. The great public is unaware of the old festival, and the 
venerable joke of the return of the Quakers, who bring to town 
the rain of May, sleeps undisturbed. The ' anniversaries' are be- 
coming almost as obsolete in memory as the figures of the clergy- 
men upon Broadway, which even the Easy Chair can recall, 
walking to church in the sunny Sunday morning in all the flow- 
ing pomp of robes, their black silk gowns floating around them 
in the breeze as they moved." The venerable joke to which 
reference is made is not dead, however. Here is how it was re- 
vived so recently as May 27, 1896, in the editorial columns of 
the JVew York Herald : 

"It may be that within the memory of some octogenarian a 
Quaker meeting has been held without any accompanying down- 
pour. But if any eighty-year-older dares to make the assertion, 
we shall boldly declare that he has reached that period of mental 
decrepitude when he draws his facts from his imagination." 

Annunciation, Feast of the (known locally in England as 
Lady Day of March). The anniversary of the day when the 
angel G-abriel announced to the Virgin the mystery of the Incar- 
nation. 

As it was necessary to place the Annunciation nine months 
before the Nativity, it follows that it was not until December 25 
had been fixed on for Christmas that March 25 was decided on 
for the Annunciation. But the feast itself dates from earlier 
times, since St. Athanasius makes mention of it in one of his 
sermons. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 49 

It is obvious that March 25 may happen in Lent. An ordi- 
nance of the patriarch Nicephorus, however, allowed the Lenten 
fast to be broken if the Annunciation happened to fall on the 
Thursday or Friday of Holy Week. Hence the Council of 
Toledo in 656, to preserve the integrity of Lent, ordered the 
transference of the feast to the week preceding Christmas. 
Some of the Eastern Churches still follow this decree, but the 
Syrians have fixed the date on December 1, and the Armenians 
on the 5th of January, while in the Latin Church it has resumed 
its more logical place in the ecclesiastical calendar. Neverthe- 
less, if it should fall in the Easter fortnight, its celebration is 
postponed until the second Monday following the festival. 

In Eome in the early part of the century the day used to be 
celebrated with great pomp and splendor. We read that the 
windows were hung with crimson and yellow silk draperies and 
occupied by females in most gorgeous attire, while the churches 
were patrolled by the Pope's horse-guards in their splendid full- 
dress uniforms, all of whom wore in their caps a sprig of myrtle 
as a sign of rejoicing. Before the service a procession appeared, 
preceded by another detachment of the guards mounted on black 
chargers, who rode forward to clear the way to the sound of trum- 
pets and the beating of drums. This martial array was followed 
by a bareheaded priest on a white mule, bearing the host in a 
gold cup, at the sight of which everybody prostrated himself 
The Pope used formerly to ride on the white mule himself, and 
all the cardinals used to follow him in their magnificent robes of 
state, but, as the eminentissimi were for the most part not very 
eminent horsemen, they were generally fastened on, lest they 
should tumble off. 

Misson in his " Voyage d'ltalie" has described another cere- 
mony which was in use in his day at the Papal chapel of the 
Minerva, whither the Pope and the Sacred College used to pro- 
ceed on horseback on the feast of the Annunciation. "After 
the Pope has said high mass, a number of young girls confess 
and communicate. Then these girls, who are dressed in white 
serge, and enveloped like phantoms in a piece of cloth which 
covers their heads, leaving only a little orifice for one eye, enter 
two by two into the choir, where all the cardinals are assembled, 
and prostrate themselves at the feet of the Pope. An ofiicer ap- 
pointed for the purpose stands by, holding a basin full of Kttle 
bags of white cloth. These enclose a bank-note either of fifty 
shillings for those who choose marriage or of one hundred shil- 
Hngs for those who prefer the convent. Each girl having 
humbly declared her choice, her bag is handed out. She kisses 
it in receiving it, makes a profound obeisance, and turns away 
to give place to the others. The future nuns are distinguished 

4 



50 CURIOSITIES OF 

by a garland of flowers which crowns their virginity. They 
hold the honorable rank in the procession." 

In England the term Lady Day (more properly Our Lady's 
Day) is applied to four other festivals, — namely, February 2, or 
Candlemas, July 2, or the Visitation, to commemorate the visit 
paid by the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elisabeth (instituted by 
Pope Urban VI. in 1383), September 8, or the Nativity, and 
December 8, or the Conception. 

Lad}^ Day of March has always been very highly observed 
in England. The Synod of Worcester, a.d. 1240^ by one of its 
canons forbade all servile work upon it, and this was afterwards 
confirmed by various provincial and diocesan councils in all re- 
spects except agricultural labor. 

Gyst-ales (see Ales) were frequently held on this day. At St. 
Albans in Hertfordshire it is still the custom to sell a species oi 
buns known as Pope Ladies {q. v.). Popular tradition still pre- 
dicts public misfortune if Lady Day falls on Easter Sunday. 
The mediaeval couplet runs, — 

When our Lady falls in our Lord's lap, 
Then England beware of great mishap. 

No less than thirteen saints figure in the calendar on this day ; 
among these two ladies, St. Dula and St. Ida, one Irishman, St. 
Cammin, Abbot of Iniskeltra, and two Englishmen, St. Alfwolf, 
Bishop of Sherborne, and St. Wilham, the child-martyr of Nor- 
wich. 

In England, besides its religious importance, which has been 
greatly minimized since the Eeformation, Lady Day has for 
centuries preserved its fiscal significance as the first quarter- 
day in the year for rents and other payments. The pay-days in 
England have been arbitrarily fixed on Lady Day, Midsummer 
Day, Michaelmas Day, and Christmas. Why ? Nobody has been 
able to explain, unless it be that, arriving, as they do, near the 
end of each quarter, such important days are better as reminders 
of duty to landlords than any ordinary 30th or 31st of the month 
would be likely to be. In England and Ireland alone have they 
this importance, for Scotland has quarter-days of her own. There 
the legal dates are Whitsunday (May 15) and Martinmas (No- 
vember 11), the conventional terms Candlemas (February 2) and 
Lammas (August 1) making up the quarter-days. 

Anselm, St., Archbishop of Canterbury. Born in Piedmont 
in 1033, he entered the monastic state at Bee, France, in 1060, 
and in 1093 succeeded his friend Lanfranc in the archiepiscopate 
of Canterbury. He died April 21, 1109. The anniversary of 
that date is celebrated as his festival. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



51 



St. Anselm was one of the most powerful mediaeval advocates 
of the supremacy of Church over State, and did much to estab- 
Hsh the Papal authority in England against the recalcitrance 




Seal of St, Anselm. 
(From Stanley's " Memorials of Canterbury.") 

of King William Eufus and King Henry I. He was buried 
in his own cathedral, and many miracles w^ere reported at his 
shrine. 

Anthony, St., hermit (251-356), the originator of the mo- 
nastic idea in Christianity. His day in the Catholic calendar is 
January 17. He is the great misogynist of the Church. He 
regarded the whole sex with profound mistrust, a mistrust not 
untinged with fear ; for, although always on the alert, he seems 
to have been never quite sure what trick they might be up to 
next. That they were, for the most part, the devil's closest and 
most unscrupulous allies was a point about which he personally 
had very little doubt. Again and again in the course of his life 
he proved clearly what he thought of them and their ways ; he 
would refuse to look on them or hold parley with them ; and the 
hu7 ien of much of his teaching was, lions are less to be feared 



52 CURIOSITIES OF 

than women. He was, in fact, the organizer and leader of the 
first anti- women crusade ; and it was part of his regular propa- 
ganda to insist that there could be neither peace on earth nor 
good will among men unless the whole feminine tribe were boy- 
cotted. Evidently he had no great faith in the resisting powers 
of his fellows ; for the lesson he most impressed upon them was 
that in dealing with women their only chance of safety lay in 




St. Anthony and the Devil. 
(From an old print reproduced in Wright's " Caricature.") 

flight. Yet, strange to say, in spite of the suspicion with which 
he regarded them, and of the contumely with which he some- 
times ireated them, St. Anthony seems always to have been 
very popular among the ladies. No matter whose altar goes un- 
decked, his is sure of its due meed of flowers, especially on his 
feie-day. 

Born in Alexandria, Anthony inherited great wealth from his 
parents, who died when he was eighteen years old. But he gave 
it all to the poor, and retired to the desert with a small com- 
pany of hermits, who lived in community, though in separate 
cells. Here his austerities attracted the special enmity of Satan. 
Evil spirits spread delicious fruit before him, and, assuming 
the forms of lovely women, tempted him to sin. When they 
found they could not enmesh him in this way, they fell upuu 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 63 

him and overwhelmed him with hideous sights and sounds. 
But in the midst of these horrors a great hght shone from 
heaven, and Christ's voice was heard, calming and comforting 
him. Then Anthony knew that the arch-fiend had been baffled. 
He sought another retreat in the ruins of an old castle on the 
Ehine. Here he shut himself up and saw no one for twenty 
years. When he emerged, great multitudes came to hear him 
preach, and such was the force of his words and his example 
that no less than five thousand hermits were at one time assem- 
bled around him in caves and tombs. Now, when the saint had 
reached the great age of ninety and had passed nearly seventy- 
five years in the desert, he began to be puffed up with pride at 
the thought that no one had lived in solitude and self-denial so 
long as he. But a voice told him that there was one Paul who 
had lived as a hermit for ninety years. Anthony went in search 
of Paul, and found him in a cavern. While the two were engaged 
in deep converse, there came a raven carrying a loaf in its beak, 
and Paul explained that for ninety years this raven had daily 
brought him half a loaf, but now for Anthony's sake the portion 
was doubled. After they had eaten, Paul told Anthony that he 
had come in time to receive his last breath. And he prayed him 
go and fetch a cloak to bury him in. And Anthony on his 
return heard heavenly music and saw the spirit of Paul wing- 
ing its way to heaven. He wrapped the body in the cloak, and 
then two lions came out of the desert and dug the grave in 
which Anthony buried him. Fourteen years after, Anthony 
died, at the age of one hundred and five. This saint has been a 
favorite subject for painters of all schools. He wears the monk's 
garb and cowl, and his attributes are various : a crutch denotes 
his old age and feebleness; a bell shows his power in exorcising 
evil spirits, for after his victory over the arch-fiend he was held 
in great terror by all the powers of hell ; and the aspergus, or 
rod for sprinkling holy water, conveys the same idea A hog 
represents the sensuality and gluttony over which he triumphed. 
Flames of fire also are often placed near him, to indicate that lie 
is a patron against fire of all sorts, natural and supernatural. 

Anthony's body, according to his instructions, was buried 
secretly on his mountain retreat by two of his disciples. About 
the year 561, according to Bollandus, it was discovered, and with 
great solemnity translated first to Alexandria and then to Con- 
stantinople. In the year 1070 the Emperor of Constantinople 
presented the relics to Joselin, a nobleman of Dauphine, who 
brought them back with him and deposited them in the church 
of La Motte St.-Didier in Yienne, France, then a Benedictine 
priory belonging to the abbey of Mont-Majour near Aries, but 
now an independent abbey of regular canons of St. Anthony, 



54 CURIOSITIES OF 

Boilandus mentions a number of miracles wrought at his shrine. 
None was more memorable than the sudden stopping of the 
plague known as the Sacred Fire, wrought through the saint's 
intercession when it was raging violently in France and other 
parts of Europe. 

This was in the year 1089. The plague has been popularly 
known as St. Anthony's fire ever since. Its more scientific name 
is erysipelas. " Public praj^ers and processions," says Alban 
Butler, " were ordered against this scourge. At length it 
pleased God to grant many miraculous cures of this dreadful 
distemper, to those who implored his mercy through the inter- 
cession of St. Anthony, especially before his relics. The church 
in which they were deposited was resorted to by great numbers 
of pilgrims, and his patronage was implored over the whole 
kingdom against this disease. A nobleman near Vienne, named 
Gaston, and his son Girond, devoted themselves and their estate 
to found and serve an hospital near this priory, for the benefit of 
the poor that were afflicted with this distemper; seven others 
joined them in their charitable attendance on the sick, whence 
a confraternity of laymen who served this hospital took its rise, 
and continued till Boniface YIII. converted the Benedictine 
priory into an abbey, which he bestowed on these hospitaller 
brothers, and, giving them the religious rule of regular canons of 
St. Austin, declared the abbot general of this new order, called 
Eegular Canons of St. Antony." 

Anthony of Padua, St., patron of that city and of animals. 
His festival is celebrated on June 13, the anniversary of his 
death, which took place in Padua in 1231. A Portuguese by 
birth, his youthful imagination became so inflamed by the story 
of the devotion and sufferings of the Franciscan friars that he 
joined St. Francis in Italy and was enrolled in the order. He is 
a favorite subject with the Italian painters, who represent him 
in the Franciscan habit, his attributes being the book and lily, 
and a flame of fire in his hand or on his breast. He is said to 
have performed many miracles, the most famous being that of 
his preaching to the fishes. When the inhabitants of Rimini 
stopped their ears and refused to listen to the saint, he repaired 
to the sea-shore and called upon the fish to hearken to him. 
"And, truly, it was a marvellous thing to see, how an infinite 
number of fishes, great and little, lifted their heads above water 
and listened attentively to the sermon." 

Pope Gregory IX. canonized the saint in 1232, the year after 
his death. In 1263 a large church was built in Padua for his 
order, and his remains were translated into it. The flesh had all 
been consumed save only the tongue, which was found incorrupt, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 65 

as red and fresh as in life. According to Butler, St. Bonaventure, 
who was among the witnesses, took it up in his hands, kissed it 
devoutly, and, bathing it with tears, poured out these words : " O 
blessed tongue, that didst always praise God, and hast been the 
cause that an infinite number learned to praise him : now it 
appears how precious thou art before Him who framed thee to be 
employed in so excellent and high a function." The tongue is 
now kept separately in a silver case. The sarcophagus of the 
saint is unusually rich, the costly lamps that hang before it being 
presents from various cities. 

At Rome the great celebration of St. Anthony's Day is at the 
Franciscan church dedicated to him. Pope, cardinals, nobles, and 
commoners send thither their horses and mules, as well as sad- 
dles and harness, and the animals and their trappings are aspersed 
and blessed in the name of the saint. 

In the Balearic Islands donkeys and horses are similarly blessed 
on St. Anthony's Day. In Palma and Mahon, the capitals re- 
spectively of the islands of Majorca and Minorca, the ceremony is 
one which half the population turns out to witness. The priest, 
in his surplice, takes up his position in the doorway of one of 
the houses in a principal thoroughfare. Beside him is placed a 
table, on which are set a bowl of holy water and a large plate 
for offerings. Servants or owners ride past on the quadrupeds, 
reining up for a moment to receive the blessing and sprinkling 
and deposit a copper in the plate. The popular belief is that the 
sprinkling of holy water will keep the devil out of the beast for 
at least a year, when the ceremony should be renewed on the next 
anniversary of St. Anthony's Day. 

For some inexplicable reason St. Anthony of Padua is regarded 
as the special patron of the careless, at least of such of them as 
lose their possessions. Throughout France, Spain, and Italy 
prayers are straightway raised to him whenever anything goes 
astray, no matter whether a child, a sheep, or a thimble. Not so 
verj^ long ago, at a school within fifty miles of Paris, some sixty 
children and their teachers were discovered, at the very hour, 
too, when they ought to have been working out sums, rending 
the air with supplications to St. Anthony to find for them some 
book they had lost. The sous-prefet was scandalized when he 
heard of the afi'air, and threatened to report it to Paris, but the 
townsfolk to a man supported the teachers, and, after all, the 
book was certainly found. 

Antigonus of Antwerp. A monstrous figure, nearly forty 
feet in height, preserved in the city hall of Antwerp and brought 
out on great occasions to be paraded through the streets. (See 
Giants.) A door in the pedestal on which he sits gives access 



56 



CURIOSITIES OF 



through a stairway to the interior of the giant's body as far up 
as the shoulders, beneath which a platform is constructed. Here 
stands a man during the processions, working the colossal head 
backward and forward by means of a winch. 



■ • 




^^w 


f 










1 


^ . 




^ 




1 


^ 


1 


^l» ir 


u 


i 




^=i 


_ 


=3 



Antigonus. 

According to legend, Antigonus was a giant who anciently in- 
trenched himself on the river Scheldt where may still be seen 
the ruins of the old castle of Antwerp and there extorted heavy 
tolls from all travellers, cutting off the hands of such as would 
not or could not accede to his request. The hands he threw 
into the river. Hence, the legend adds, the origin of the word 
Antwerp (Hantwerpen, or Hand-tossing). Finally, through the 
agency of Prince Brabo (q. v.), Antigonus was slain and the city 
relieved. This legend is incorporated in the arms of Antwerp, 
which consists of a castle with three towers argent, surmounted 
by two hands. 

In the processions the figure of Antigonus is preceded by two 
men, arrayed in the livery of the citizen, carrying severed hands 
as a trophy. In old times it was found necessary to lower the 
lanterns and remove the chains or ropes by which they were sus- 
pended, in all streets through which the figure passed. It always 
takes part in processions to honor the arrival of kings and poten- 
tates within the city. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 57 

Apollonia, St., the patroness against toothache and all dis- 
eases of the teeth. Her day is February 9. She was born in 
Alexandria, of heathen parents. When she became a convert 
to Christianity, her father handed her over to the authorities. 
They bound her to a column, drew her teeth out one by one 
with pincers, and then burned her, February 9, a.d. 250. Her 
attributes are a pair of pincers with a tooth. Sometimes a 
golden tooth is suspended on her neck-chain. The major part 
of her relics are preserved in the church of St. Apollonia at 
Eome, her head at Santa Maria Transtiberina, her arms in St. 
Lawrence outside the walls, parts of her jaw in St. Basil's, and 
other relics are in the Jesuit church at Antwerp, in St. Augustine's 
at Brussels, in the Jesuit church at Mechlin, in St. Cross at Liege, 
and in several churches at Cologne. These relics consist in some 
cases of a tooth only or a splinter of bone. 

Apprentices' Feast. In the seventeenth century the appren- 
tices of the city of London held an annual feast at Saddlers' 
Hall on August 4. In Noorthouck's " History of London" it is 
recorded that Charles II. sent to this feast a brace of bucks, 
that his natural son the Duke of Grafton officiated as one of 
the stewards, and that a number of his courtiers dined with the 
apprentices. 

April. The fourth month of the modern year, and the first 
month of spring. In the ancient Albanian calendar, which 




April Feasting. 
(From an eleventh-century MS.) 

divided the year into ten months of irregular length, April, with 
thirty-six days, stood first. In the calendar of Eomulus it had 
thirty'days, and was the second month. Numa's twelve-month 
calendar assigned it the fourth place, with twenty-nine days ; and 
so it remained till Julius Caesar's reformation of the calendar, 
when it recovered its quota of thirty days, which it has ever 
since retained. (See Calendar.) 

The name has been a subject of considerable etymological 
guess-work. It has been supposed to come from aperio, " I open," 



58 CURIOSITIES OF 

as marking the time when buds of trees and flowers begin to 
open. But, inasmuch as all the other months are named after 
divinities or supposititious demigods, and as the Romans always 
looked upon April as being under the peculiar tutelage of Yenus, 
it seems not impossible that Aprilis was originally Aphrilis, from 
Aphrodite, the Greek name of Venus. 

Among the Anglo-Saxons the month was known as Oster- 
monath, whence our word Easter is sometimes imagined to have 
been derived. 

Proverbial philosophy looks benignly upon April. The staccato 
rains which form its chief peculiarity are welcomed : 

April showers 
Bring May flowers. 

Even something more emphatic than a shower is productive 
of good : 

An April flood 

Carries away the frog and his brood. 

Nor is there any harm in wind : 

When April blows his horn 
'Tis good for both hay and com. 

April Fool Day, or All Fools' Day. The First of April, 
when it is an almost universal custom throughout Christendom 
to play more or less amiably asinine tricks upon one's neighbor. 
Of the origin of this custom nothing positive is known. True, 
there be antiquaries of a peculiarly sanguine and sapient type 
who have evolved explanations that have all the rich humor of 
other " origins" invented by people destitute of humor. Believe 
these, and you will look on April fooling as well-nigh coeval with 
the race. 

One speculator gravely goes back to Noah and the Ark. The 
April fool custom, says the London Public Advertiser of March 
13, 1769, arose from "the mistake of Noah sending the dove out 
of the ark before the water had abated, on the first day of the 
month among the Hebrews which answers to our first of April, 
and to perpetuate the memory of this deliverance it was thought 
proper, whoever forgot so remarkable a circumstance, to punish 
them by sending them upon some sleeveless errand similar to 
that ineff'cctual message upon which the bird was sent by the 
patriarch." 

Another refers it to the time of Christ, arguing that as the 
Passion of our Saviour took place about this time of the year, and 
as the Jews sent Christ backward and forward to mock and tor- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. ' 59 

menthim, — i.e.^ from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, 
from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate, — 
this ridiculous or rather impious custom took its rise thence, by 
which we send about from one place to another such persons 
as we think proper objects of our ridicule. Further confirmation 
is sought in the French name for an April fool, " poisson d'Avril," 
on the theory that this poisson is a corruption of " passion." 

Such an explanation would be unpleasant enough, but, luckily, 
it has not a leg to stand on. All Fools' Day is at once far older 
and far younger than the time of Christ, — older if looked upon 
as a day set apart for merriment at the expense of one's neigh- 
bor, younger if the merriment be specially associated with the 
1st of April. As to the term '-poisson d'Avril," it means ex- 
actly what it says, an " April fish," — i.e., a young fish, and there- 
fore a fish easily caught, — much as in English we use the words 
" gudgeon" and " sucker." 

The most plausible conjecture is that which ascribes the 
origin of the custom to France. This nation took the lead over 
all Christendom in commencing the New Year on January 1 
instead of March 25. Before the change was made the merry- 
making culminated on the octave of the feast, April 1, when 
visits were paid and gifts bestowed. With the adoption of the 
reformed calendar in 1564, New Year's Day was carried back to 
January 1, and only pretended gifts and mock ceremonial visits 
were made on April 1, with the view of making fools of those who 
had forgotten the change of date. The custom once started was 
kept up after its origin had been forgotten. Its continuance was 
helped on by the fact that it appeals to an integral part of human 
nature which has asserted itself at all times and in all countries. 

In character, though not in point of time. All Fools' Day 
corresponds with the Eoman Saturnalia, when Caius and Man- 
lius and the rest of the us's bent their classic wits to the task 
of fooling one the other, and with the mediaeval Feast of Fools, 
when the pre-Renaissance intellect battened in all sorts of ab- 
surdities. But the nearest and most startling analogy, not only 
in kind, but almost in actual date, was and is the Feast of Huli, 
in Hindostan. The last day of this feast is March 31, when the 
chief diversion is to send people on errands and expeditions that 
are to end in disappointment for the sendee and merriment for 
the sender and his friends. " They carry the joke so far," says 
Colonel Pearce in his "Asiatic Researches," "as to send letters 
making appointments in the names of persons it is known must 
be absent from their houses at the time fixed upon, and the laugh 
is always in proportion to the trouble given." 

It is not impossible that the English borrowed their April 
fooling from the French. For, in spite of all antiquarian guesses, 



60 CURIOSITIES OF 

the custom does not seem to have had any existence in Great 
Britain until about the beginning of the eighteenth century. 
The earliest literary allusion to it is by Addison in the " Spec- 
tator," where he scornfully tells how "a neighbor of mine, who 
is a haberdasher b}^ trade, and a very shallow, conceited fellow, 
makes his boast that for these ten years consecutively he has 
not made less than a hundred Fools. My landlady had a falling 
out with him about a fortnight ago for sending every one of her 
children upon a sleeveless errand, as she terms it. Her eldest 
son went to buy a halfpenny's worth of inkle at a shoemaker's ; 
the eldest daughter was despatched half a mile to see a monster ; 
and, in short, the whole family of innocent children made April 
Fools. Nay, my landlady herself did not escape him." 

Yet, though the great Addison did not approve of April fool- 
ing, the greater Swift seems to have condescended to custom. 
In his "Journal to Stella," March 31, 1713, he tells how he. Dr. 
Arbuthnot, and Lady Masham spent an amusing evening "in 
contriving a lie for the morrow." The scheme was that the 
august trio should, through their servants, circulate a report that 
one Noble, who had been hanged a few days previous, had come 
to life again and was now to be seen in the flesh as a guest of the 
Black Swan in Holborn. Thus mine host would have his bands 
full with an influx of curious visitors. Next day, however. Swift 
records that his colleagues did not come up to their agreement, 
and thus the scheme had failed. 

What are known as " sleeveless" errands have always been a 
special favorite on this day in England. Endless is the joy if a 
rustic can be found so simple as to apply at the village bookstore 
for a " History of Eve's Grandmother," at the grocer's for a pint 
of pigeon's milk, at the cobbler's for strap oil. The latter was a 
prime favorite. The cobbler, if he were up to the game, would 
promptly give the innocent customer the strap with no oil to 
moisten it. It is curious to find that all these jests were prac- 
tised over a century and a half ago. So early as 1728 we find 
them thus recorded in " Poor Eobin's Almanac :" 

No sooner doth St. All-fools' morn approach, 

But waggs, ere Phebus mount his gilded coach, 

In sholes assemble to employ their sense, 

In sending fools to get intelligence ; 

One seeks hen's teeth, in farthest part of th' town ; 

Another pigeon's milk ; a third a gown 

From strolHng cobler's stall, left there by chance; 

Thus lead the giddy tribe a merry dance. 

And to reward them for their harmless toil. 

The cobler 'noints their limbs with stirrup oil. 

Thus by contriver's inadvertent jest, 

One fool expos 'd makes pastime for the rest. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 61 

Not yet has the habit disappeared of leaving a valuable-look- 
ing ])ackage in a public place, nor the trick, devised by a refine- 
ment of strategy to meet a refinement of perspicacity, of making 
the package heavy and hard, so that he who contemptuously 
kicks it aside may come to grief no less surely than he who 
trustingly picks it up. Still does the small boy take dehght in 
calling to the passing dude to look to his coat-tails, when he may 
find them with a piece of paper pinned thereon, or may not, in 
either case being saluted as an April fool. 

In Scotland, that proverbial land of " wut" and humor, an ex- 
quisite bit of foolery is as popular as it was a century ago. This 
is called Hunting the Gowk. Gowk, originally a cuckoo, means 
by extension a fool, a simpleton. The trick is for Wag JSTo. 1 to 
send his victim to Wag No. 2, at some distance, with a letter con- 
taining such words as these : 

This is the first of Aprile, 
Hunt the gowk another mile. 

No. 2 then says that he is not the person sought, or that he 
cannot do what the letter asks, and advises the messenger to go 
to somebody else, some distance farther on. The third sends him 
to a fourth, and so on, till the victim suspects the trick, or is told 
of it by some kindly Sandy. 

In the words of " Poor Eobin's Almanac," — 

It is a thing to be disputed, 
Which is the greatest fool reputed, 
The man who innocently went 
Or he that him designedly sent? 

These pleasantries are not unknown in America, where street 
urchins also find great comfort in placing a brick under an old 
hat on the sidewalk for the passer-by to kick at with disastrous 
effect on his toes, or to put a purse with a string attached to it 
in the same public place and jerk it away if the unwary seek 
to grasp it. A hot iron carelessly laid where it may be picked 
up — and dropped — is also a favorite implement with juvenile 
jesters. 

Many a paterfamilias on rising in the morning finds that the 
legs of his trousers have been turned into a mare clausum by 
the cunning adjustment of prohibitory pins. At the breakfast 
he is hailed with the information that "there is something on 
your face, papa!" and after ineffectual efforts to wipe it off is 
told with wild ahrieks of juvenile laughter that that something 
is his nose, with the further information that he is an April fool 
for his trouble. 



62 CURIOSITIES OF 

Being a kindly man and a good father, he does not explain to 
his progeny that the uproarious jest is one which he himself 
had practised in the days of his nonage upon his equally com- 
placent parent. 

April Fool candy, made of gun-cotton plentifully spiced with 
Cayenne pepper, coated with sugar, and appetizingly colored, is 
sold in American candy- and toy-shops for juvenile use on this 
day. 

The story is told, though of doubtful authenticity, how Francis, 
Duke of Lorraine, and his wife escaped from captivity at Nantes 
one April 1. Dressed as peasants, they started off boldly to pass 
the sentries. Some one, detecting their disguise, ran ahead and 
warned the guards. The latter laughed in derision, however, 
and shouted back, knowingly, " Poisson d'Avril!" and thus the 
pretended peasants made good their escape. 

Another French story bears an excellent moral. A lady stole 
a w^atch from a friend's house, as an April joke, and, still as an 
April joke, sent the poHce all over the town. When at last it 
was located and the jester cried, " Poisson d'Avril !" the magis- 
trate continued the merry bit of drollery by informing the lady 
that she would have to go to jail until the ensuing Ist of April 
as a poisson d'Avril! A Daniel come to judgment! 

So recently as 1860 some gay spirits in London put their heads 
together and perpetrated a successful and notorious piece of 
foolery on the wholesale plan. Towards the latter part of March 
many well-known persons received through the post the follow- 
ing invitation card, bearing the stamp of an inverted sixpence 
on one of the corners for oflScial effect : 

"Tower of London — Admit Bearer and Friend to view annual 
ceremony of Washing the White Lions on Sunday, April 1, 1860. 
Admittance only at White Gate. 

" It is particularly requested that no gratuities be given to 
wardens or attendants." 

The ruse worked so well that a succession of cabs rattled 
around Tower Hill all the morning, much to the disturbance of 
the customary peace of the Sabbath, in vain attempts to discover 
the White Gate. 

Arbor Day. In most of the States of the Union, and in 
portions of Canada, a fixed day on which the citizens, the magis- 
trates, the school-children, and others plant trees and shrubs 
along roadsides and in other suitable places. It is a movable 
festival, varying according to climate, though usually falling in 
April or May, and in the United States is appointed either by 
the legislature or the governor acting under legislative authority. 
The pioneer State in the movement was Nebraska. The pioneer 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 63 

mover was J. Sterling Morton, afterwards Secretary of Agricul- 
ture during President Cleveland's second term. In 1872 he was 
a member of the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture, and he 
offered a resolution setting apart April 10 of that j'ear as " tree- 
planting day." There were some members of the Board who 
contended for the name " Sylvan Day," but Mr. Morton talked 
them out of this title. The resolution as finally adopted recom- 
mended that the people throughout the State plant trees on the 
day named, and offered, in the name of the Board, a prize of one 
hundred dollars to the agricultural society of that county which 
should plant properly the largest number of trees. To the person 
planting the largest number of trees a farm library worth twenty- 
five dollars was offered. The Board requested the newspapers 
to keep this resolution before their readers, and the newspapers 
responded so generously that more than one million trees were 
planted throughout Nebraska on the first Arbor Day. 

Next year the day was observed with increased interest, and 
in 1874 the governor officially proclaimed the second Wednes- 
day of April as Arbor Day for Nebraska. The day was named 
thus by proclamation until 1885, when the legislature designated 
April 22 as Arbor Day and a holiday. Since that time a pro- 
vision has been inserted in the Constitution of Nebraska de- 
claring that " the increased value of lands, by reason of live 
fences, fruit and forest trees grown and cultivated thereon, shall 
not be taken into account in the assessment thereof." In addi- 
tion to this, Nebraska has enacted many statutory provisions 
touching upon the planting of trees. One directs the corporate 
authorities of cities and towns to cause shade-trees to be planted 
along the streets, and empowers the authorities to make addi- 
tional assessments for taxation upon lands benefited by such 
planting. Another section of the law provides for the planting 
of trees not more than twenty feet apart upon each side of one- 
fourth of the streets in everj^ city and village of Nebraska. 
Most persons acquainted with the needs of really valuable 
shade-trees realize that such trees should be planted a good deal 
farther apart than the distance thus indicated by law. 

One result of all this legislation, and of the premiums offered 
each year by the State Board of Agriculture, has been the 
astonishing prosperity of nurserymen in Nebraska. In the first 
sixteen years after Arbor Day was instituted there were more 
than three hundred and fifty million trees and vines planted in 
Nebraska, and the observance of the day is still kept up with 
interest. 

In 1876 Michigan and Minnesota followed suit, and like action 
was soon taken in other States. In 1887 the Education Depart- 
ment of Ontario ordered that the first Friday in May should be 



64 CURIOSITIES OF 

set apart by the trustees of every rural school and incorporated 
village for planting shade-trees and making flower-beds in the 
school-grounds. 

New York did not fall in line until 1888, when on April 30 the 
following act was approved by the governor : 

Section 1. The Friday following the first day of May in each year shall 
hereafter be known throughout this State as Arbor Day. 

^ 2. It shall be the duty of the authorities of every public school in this 
State, to assemble the scholars in their charge on that day in the school build- 
ing, or elsewhere, as they may deem proper, and to provide for and conduct, 
under the general supervision of the city superintendent or the school com- 
missioner, or other chief officers having the general oversight of the public 
schools in each city or district, such exercises as shall tend to encourage the 
planting, protection and preservation of trees and shrubs, and an acquaint- 
ance with the best methods to be adopted to accomplish such results. 

g 3. The State Superintendent of Public Instruction shall have power to 
prescribe from time to time, in writing, a course of exercises and instruction 
in the subjects hereinbefore mentioned, which shall be adopted and observed 
by the public school authorities on Arbor Day, and upon receipt of copies of 
such course, sufficient in number to supply all the schools under their super- 
vision, the school commissioner or city superintendent aforesaid shall promptly 
provide each of the schools under his or their charge with a copy, and cause 
it to be adopted and observed. » 

By a popular vote the pupils of the State schools of New 
York decided that the white elm was the tree and the rose the 
flower of the State. They are therefore called upon to do all 
in their power to increase the number of both by planting them 
on Arbor Day. With this object in view, Central Park and the 
big pleasure-grounds in the upper part of the city are thrown 
open to them. Small parties of tree planters start from most of 
the up-town schools in the afternoon, and go to some nook chosen 
by the Park Commissioners to add their tribute to the day. Songs 
are sung during the planting, and the teachers tell the pupils all 
about the tree they have planted, how it will grow, and how 
grateful its shade will be to future generations. A luncheon 
spread in the open concludes the ceremonies. Arbor Day has 
been imitated by Spain. (See Feast of the Tree.) 

Arthur's Oon. A supposititious Eoman relic which formerly 
existed on the Carron in Stirlingshire, Scotland. Alexander 
Gordon has preserved its appearance in his " Itinerarium Sep- 
tentrionale." It was a diminutive building, twenty-two feet in 
height, with an outer circumference of some ninety feet, and an 
arched door about nine feet high, the whole crowned with a dome 
having a circular opening. It became a fruitful subject for 
antiquarian speculation. In dimensions and structure it was 
acknowledged that it bore some resemblance to the curious 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 65 

beehive houses, to be found in some of the ancient Irish burial- 
grounds, but these are of the roughest handiwork, while the 
accurately hewn and nicely adjusted stones of Arthur's Oon 
suggested Eoman artisanship. The etymologist jumped in with 
a guess that Arthur's Oon was a contraction for Arthur's Oven, 
as if it were the circular baking-place where that hospitable 
prince appropriately prepared the viands consumed at his round 
table. But the general run of antiquaries from a very early 
period preferred to believe in the Eoman origin. The not always 
reliable Nennius tells us as explicitly as possible that Carausius 
built on the banks of the Carron a round house of polished stone 
as a triumphal arch in memory of his victory, while he rebuilt 
the wall between the Forth and the Clyde and fortified it with 
seven castles. The ever unreliable Hector Boece is not less spe- 
cific in stating that it was raised by Yespasian in honor of his 
predecessor Claudius, and that it covers the ashes of the distin- 
guished officer Auliis Plautius. Hector mentions some other little 
particulars, which, if true, are decidedly to the point, — as that in 
his day the e^gy of a Eoman eagle was visible cut in the pave- 
ment, and that there stood within the building a stone sacrificial 
altar. Sir Eobert Sibbald, the naturalist and historian, probably 
having his imagination heightened by this statement, declared 
that with a lighted link he could trace the outline of an eagle's 
head, and that he could also trace something extremely like the 
figure of a Victory. Moreover, he saw certain letters which, 
with a diffidence unprecedented and unimitated in the antiqua- 
rian world, he declared to be to him (Sir Eobert) quite unin- 
telligible. 

Thus Arthur's Oon had become accepted as one of the won- 
ders of Scotland, when the proprietor of the estate in which it 
stood, not having the fear of the antiquarian world before his 
eyes, but desiring some good hewn stone for the purpose of flag- 
ging a mill-dam, and believing that he could do what he liked 
with his own, took Arthur's Oon to pieces. The mill-dam which 
he built was carried off by a flood, — a just judgment, as it was 
deemed, on its sacrilegious owner ; and the hewn stones of 
Arthur's Oon have for over a centurj^ been buried in silt, or 
tossed about and rounded by the water of the stream. The anti- 
quaries were loud in their wail, and propagated their indignant 
grief far around. Posterity took up the cry. " We remember," 
says Blackwood's Magazine for November, 1853, " that, when the 
representative of the original victim stood for a Scottish constitu- 
ency after the passing of the Eeform Bill, it was stated against 
him, with mysterious emphasis, that he was the descendant of 
the destroyer of Arthur's Oon ; and we saw the whole delin- 
quency specifically described as a sort of celebrated crime in 

6 



66 CURIOSITIES OF 

the work of a German historian, published within the past five 
years." 

Artillery Day. In the early part of the nineteenth century 
this was a festival celebrated in Boston within the week after the 
announcement of the election of a new governor. The day the 
announcement was made was known as Nigger 'Lection Day 
(q. v.), because on that day blacks as well as whites were allowed 
to throng the Boston Common to buy gingerbread and drink 
beer. On Artillery Day the Ancient and Honorable Artillery 
held a formal parade, and chose its new officers, who received 
with much ceremonj", out of doors, their new commissions from 
the new governor. Negroes were strictly debarred from its high 
privileges and pleasures. In 1817 a negro boy named William 
Eead, enraged at this restriction, blew up a ship called the Can- 
ton Packet in Boston harbor. For years it was a standing taunt 
of white boys in Boston to negroes, — 

Who blew up the ship ? 

Nigger. Why for? 
'Cause he couldn't go to 'lection 

And shake pawpaw. 

Pawpaw was a gambling game which was played on the Com- 
mon with four sea- shells of the Cyprcea moneta. 

Arval, or Avril. (Dan. arveol, "a wake," "a funeral feast.") 
In the northern parts of England a feast or entertainment at 
funerals. After the interment, the relations first, and then their 
attendants, throw upon the grave sprigs of bay, rosemary, or 
other odoriferous evergreens, which have previously been dis- 
tributed among them. The company then adjourn to a neigh- 
boring public house, where they are severally presented with a 
cake and a glass of ale, which refreshment is called an arval. 

Asaruf, Al. (Arabic, " The Sacred Eelic") The name given 
by Mohammedans to a hair of either the beard or the moustache 
of the Prophet, or to his footprint. The most famous of the Al 
Asarufs (a hair of the beard) is exhibited in the great mosque at 
Delhi ; another is in a mosque in Cashmere. 

Ascension Day, or Holy Thursday, is celebrated on the 
fortieth day after Easter Sunday in honor of the ascension of 
the Messiah into heaven forty days after his resurrection. It is 
one of the oldest festivals of the Church. St. Augustine says 
that in his day it had been kept from time immemorial, and he 
attributes its institution to the apostles. Gregory of Tours 
mentions a procession which used to be held on this day, in 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 67 

memory of that which the apostles made from Jerusalem to 
Bethany and the Mount of Olives. It was also the custom in 
ancient Catholic days to bless the bread and new fruits in the 
mass of this day. In CathoHc churches the paschal candle is 
removed from the altar and extinguished after the Gospel at 
high mass, the rite symbolizing Christ's departure from the 
apostles. 

Naogeorgus, in " The Popish Kingdom," as rendered by Bar- 
naby Googe, thus satirically describes some of the scenes which 
characterized Ascension Day in mediaeval times : 

Then comes the day when Christ ascended to his Father's seate, 
Which day they also celebrate with store of drink and nieate. 
Then every man some bird must eate, I know not to what ende, 
And after dinner all to church they come and there attende. 
The blocke that on the aultar still till then was seen to stande, 
Is drawn up hie above the roofe by ropes and force of hande : 
The priests about it round do sta^nde, and chant it to the side, 
For all these men's religion great in singing most doth lie. 
Then out of hande the dreadfull shape of Sathan downe they throwe 
Oft times, with fire burning bright and dasht asunder tho. 
The boyes with greedie eyes do watch and on him straight they fall, 
And beat him sore with rods and breake him into pieces small. 
This done, they wafers downe do cast, and singing cakes the while, 
"With papers round amongst them put the children to beguile. 
With laughter great are all things done : and from the beams they let 
Great streams of water downe to fall on whom they mean to wet. 
And thus this solemn holiday and hie renowned feast, 
And all their whole devotion here, is ended with a jeast. 

In the Anglican Church it is the only weekday, save Christ- 
mas, for which there is provided a special preface to the com- 
munion. On this day, or on one of the three days preceding 
(known as Eogation days), was performed the old English 
custom of beating the bounds. Lysons also mentions the prac- 
tices on this day of " rush-bearing, of hanging up white gloves 
and garlands of roses in the churches at the funerals of young 
maidens, of foot-ball plays, and of well-dressing" (^q. v.). 

Many English towns have or have had their own local ob- 
servances on Ascension Day. In Nantwich the Blessing of the 
Brine was then performed. Pennant describes this custom in 
his "Tour from Chester to London" (1811, p. 40): "A very 
ancient pit called the Old Brine was also held in great venera- 
tion, and till within these few years was annually on this festival- 
decked with flowers and garlands and was encircled by a jovial 
band of young people, celebrating the day with song and dance." 
A correspondent of The Gentleman's Magazine (n87, vol. Ivii. 
p. 718) calls attention to a custom in many villages of Exeter 
to " hail the Lamb" on Ascension morn. " That the figure of a 



68 CURIOSITIES OF 

lamb actually appears in the east upon this morning is the pop- 
ular persuasion ; and so deeply is it rooted that it has frequently 
resisted (even in intelligent minds) the force of the strongest 
argument." Brand in his " Popular Antiquities" mentions the 
smock-race on Ascension Day, run by young country wenches 
in the north of England. The prize was a fine Holland chemise, 
usually decorated with ribbons. In Nottinghamshire it is be- 
lieved that an egg laid on Ascension Day if placed in the roof 
of a house will ward off fire, lightning, and other calamities. 

The men in the slate-quarries of Northern Wales have a 
curious superstition that if they work on Ascension Day a fatal 
accident will happen to one of their number. " Some years 
ago," says Notes and Queries, Seventh Series, vol. ii. p. 232, " an 
attempt was made to break down this superstition, and for two 
years the managers succeeded in inducing the men to work as 
usual. Strange to relate, however, a fatal accident occurred each 
year, and this naturally tended- to increase the dislike of the 
superstitious to work on that day." 

Ascension Day at Etretat, near Havre, is marked by a sin- 
gular religious ceremony peculiar to this ancient town of Nor- 
mandy. Two centuries ago a small river flowed down the narrow 
valley that here breaks the continuity of the high chalk cliffs 
between Havre and Dieppe. A violent storm from the north- 
west on Ascension Day, 1690, sent the sea far up this gully, and 
submerged the little fishing^town which nestled on its steep 
slopes. When they receded, the waves left behind them a me- 
morial in the shape of a shingle bank, which has served ever 
since as a bulwark against further incursions. On every recur- 
ring Ascension Da}^ morning a solemn procession w^lks from the 
church of Etretat to the beach. First comes a beadle in cocked 
hat, red stockings, and red small clothes and a profusion of gold 
lace, then the children of the infant schools marshalled by the 
Sisters of Charity, next a troop of young girls dressed in white, 
behind them weather-beaten tars carrying a banner with the 
inscription " Aimons-nous, aidons-nous," then a gold crucifix, 
followed by the clergy in gorgeous vestments and the church 
ofiicials, and last of all the cure in his richly embroidered 
chasuble. 

After chanting some prayers on the beach, the cure takes the 
crucifix from the hands of one of the acolytes and holds it for- 
. ward so that the handle may dip into the incoming waves. Then 
with the holy water brush he sprinkles the sea, making the sign 
of the cross over it. This being done, the blessing is pronounced, 
the band strikes up a march, and the procession returns to church 
to finish the mass. The military band takes an important part 
in this mass, and the effect of the brass instruments is veiy 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 69 

grand in the echoing walls of the old Norman church. An illus- 
tration of this ceremony may be found in the London Graphic of 
May 28, 1892. 

In dogal Venice Ascension Day was chosen for the great festi- 
val of the Doge's marriage to the Adriatic. 

At Eome the paschal candle is extinguished after the Gospel, 
to show the faithful that Christ on this day left the earth to 
shine in heaven. The altar is adorned with flowers, images, and 
relics. The priests and assistants on this occasion resume their 
white vestments. The benediction given by the Pope on this 
day is one of the three solemn benedictions of the Church. For- 
merly the benediction was preceded by a solemn excommunica- 
tion of heretics and infidels. 

Ascot, Royal. Ascot Heath is a rac6-course in Berkshire, 
England, some twenty-nine miles to the southwest of London. 
The races which are held here early in June are usually attended 
by the royal family in semi-state. Hence the title Eoyal Ascot. 
Hence also the fact that of all occasions of out-door sport these 
are the most patrician and fashionable. There is evidence that 
Queen Anne instituted the meetings on August 6, 1711, though 
the common supposition is that they originated in 1727 with 
William, Duke of Cumberland, uncle to George III. But they 
did not attain any great prestige until the memorable race for 
the Oakland Stakes in June, 1791, won by the Prince of Wales, 
afterwards George lY. Thereafter George III. never missed a 
race. He ran horses there, he gave prizes, and he instituted the 
Eoyal Processions from Windsor Castle, six miles away, which 
are still a feature of the meeting on Tuesday and Thursday of 
Ascot week. The Master of the Buckhounds leads the way on 
a handsome steed ; behind him are the servants of the hunt, in 
scarlet-and-green liveries, and then the carriages. To each of 
these are four horses ridden by postilions in scarlet, and a brave 
showing the whole makes. The carriages are open landaus, and 
have two footmen sitting behind. The Prince and Princess of 
Wales are always in the first landau, with some other English or 
foreign royal person, and loud cheers greet them as they drive 
up the course and into the enclosure. The next two or three 
carriages also have royalties in them, and the last two or three 
the suite, outriders in scarlet being between each carriage. 

Ash Wednesday. The first day of Lent in our modern 
observance. The name has a general reference to the penitential 
sackcloth and ashes so frequently spoken of in the Old Testa- 
ment, but a more special one to a peculiar rite in the Eoman 



70 



CURIOSITIES OF 



Church. Before the commencement of mass the congregation 
approach and kneel at the altar rails, and the priest puts ashes 
on the forehead of each, saying, " Memento, homo, quia pulvis 
es, et in pulverem reverteris" (" Remember, man, that thou art 
dust, and unto dust thou shalt return"). The ashes are obtained 
by burning the palm- branches consecrated in the church on the 
Palm Sunday of the year previous. 




Ash Wednesday. 
(From Pi cart.) 



Originally the administration of the ashes was made only to 
public penitents. These had to appear barefooted and in peni- 
tential garb before the church door on the first day of Lent. 
There their penances were imposed upon them. Then they were 
admitted into the church and brought before the bishop. He 
put ashes on their heads, and to the words already quoted added, 
" age poenitentiam ut habeas vitam seternam" (" do penance that 
thou mayest have eternal life"). Then he addressed them a 
few words of exhortation, at the end of which they were sol- 
emnly excluded from the church. Gradually it came to be the 
custom for friends and relatives to manifest their humili'^y and 
affection by joining the penitents, expressing a similar contri- 
tion in their outward guise and offering their foreheads for the 
ashes. The numbers of these self-condemned penitents grew in 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 71 

time to be so large that at last the administration of ashes 
was extended to the whole congregation and the rite took its 
present form. 

]N"or was Ash Wednesday always included within the Lenten 
period. In the fifth and sixth centuries Lent began with the suc- 
ceeding Sunday, lasting for six weeks, which (omitting Sundays) 
would be thirty-six days. At what time Ash Wednesday and 
the three following days were added to the fast is not precisely 
known, but it was certainly before 714, as a capitulary of the 
church of Toulon of that date describes the Lenten usage as 
identical with our own. The reason for the change is readily 
intelligible. The addition of these four days makes the fast 
(omitting Sundays) exactly forty days in duration, and there- 
fore accords with the fasts of Moses and Eli as, and especially 
the fast of the Saviour. 

In Protestant Churches the Lenten sermons generally begin on 
Ash Wednesday, but a special service is held only in the English 
Church. Even here, however, the use of ashes has been discon- 
tinued since shortly after the Eeformation, as being a "vain 
show," and the only memorial of the original character of the 
day is in the reading of the curses denounced against impenitent 
sinners, when the people are directed to repeat an Amen at the 
end of each malediction. This was not always so, however, for 
in an original black-letter proclamation, dated 26 February, 30 
Henry YIIL, concerning rites and ceremonies to be retained in 
the Church of England, we read, " On Ashe Wenisday it shall 
be declared, that these ashes be gyven to put every Christen 
man in remembrance of penaunce at the beginning." 

Naogeorgus gives a burlesque account of the Ash Wednesday 
solemnities in his day : 

The Wednesday next, a solemn day, to church they early go, 

To sponge out all the foolish deedes by them committed so ; 

They money give, and on their heddes the Prieste doth ashes laye, 

And with his holy water washeth all their sinnes away : 

In woondrous sort against the veniall sinnes doth profite this, 

Yet here no stay of madnesse now, nor ende of follie is, 

With mirth to dinner straight they go, and to their woonted play, 

And on their deuills shapes they put, and sprightish fonde araye. 

Some sort there are that mourning go, with lantarnes in their hande, 

While in the day time Titan hright, amid the skies doth stande : 

And seeke their Shroftide Bachanal, still crying every where, 

Where are our feastes hecome ? alas the cruell fastes appere. 

Some beare about a herring on a staffe, and lowde doe rore, 

Herrings, herrings, stincking herrings, puddings now no more. 

And hereto joyne they foolish playes, and doltish dogrell rimes, 

And what beside they can invent, belonging to the times. 

Some others beare upon a staffe their fellowes horsed hie. 

And carie them unto some ponde, or running river nie, 



72 CURIOSITIES OF 

That what so of their foolish feast, doth in them yet remayne, 
May underneth the floud be plungde, and wash't away againe. 
Some children doe intise with nuttes, and peares abrode to play, 
And singing through the towne they go, before them all the way. 
In some place all the youthful flocke, with minstrels doe repaire, 
And out of every house they plucke the girles, and maydens fayre. 
And them to plough they straightways put, with whip one doth them hit, 
Another holds the plough in hande ; the Minstrell here doth sit 
Amidde the same, and drounken songes with gaping mouth, he sings, 
Whome foloweth one that sowes out sande, or ashes fondly flings. 
When thus they through the streetes have plaide, the man that guideth all. 
Doth drive both plough aiid maydens through some ponde or river small : 
And dabbled all with durt, and wringing wette as they may bee, 
To supper calles, and after that to daunsing lustilee. 

Aubanus corroborates the last folly described. " There is a 
strange custom," he says, "used in many places of Germany 
upon Ash Wednesday, for then the young youth get all the 
maids together, which have practised dauncing all the year before, 
and carrying them in a cart or tumbrell (which they draw them- 
selves instead of horses) and a minstrell standing atop of it 
playing all the way, they draw them into some lake or river, and 
there wash them well favouredly." 

The Jack-o'-Lent made iis first appearance on Ash Wednesday. 
This was a ragged scarecrow-like effigy, used as a symbol or 
personification of Lent, and carried around in processions to be 
shied at with sticks as a sort of burlesque of the sport of throw- 
ing at cocks practised on Shrove Tuesday. 

A singular custom came to an abrupt end in the reign of 
George 1. During the Lenten season it had long been customary 
for an officer of the royal household, known as the King's Cock 
Grower, to crow the hour every night within the precincts of the 
palace, instead of leaving it to the watchmen to proclaim it. 
On the first Ash Wednesday after the Hanoverian succession, 
just as the Prince of Wales, subsequently George II., sat down 
to supper, this officer made his appearance and emitted ten 
shrill crows. The astonished prince, thinking some insult was 
intended, jumped up to resent it, and was with difficulty calmed 
by an explanation. " From that period," says Brady, " we find 
no further account of the exertion of the imitative powers of 
this important officer, but the court has been left to the voice of 
reason and conscience to remind them of their errors, and not 
to that of a cock, whose clarion called back Peter to repentance, 
which this fantastical and sill}^ ceremony was meant to typify." 

In rural France the peasantry on Ash Wednesday used to 
carry around an effigy supposed to be a personification of good 
cheer, and collected money for its funeral, inasmuch as this day 
was the burial of good living. After sundry absurd mummeries, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 73 

/ 
the corpse was deposited in the earth. ^j[See Sardine, Burial 

OF THE.) 

Ashton Fagot. A huge fagot composed of sticks or branches 
of ash, securely bound together with ash bands or withes, which 
is burned on Christmas Eve in lieu of the Yule-log (^. v.~) 
in Devonshire and Somersetshire, England. Sometimes it is 
placed in the grate ; but, as grates are not common there, it is 
more usually burned on the floor. A crowd of merrymakers 
gather around it, to whom a quart of cider is served upon the 
bursting of every band. As the timber is green and elastic, 
each band generally bursts open with a smart report, which is 
greeted with loud calls for the cider. The men who make up 
the fagot take care to put as many bands around it as possible, 
to insure a goodly supply of cider. A poem written in 1795 
thus refers to the fagot, bands, and cider : 

The pond'rous ashen faggot from the yard 
The jolly farmer to his crowded hall 
Conveys with speed ; where, on the rising flames 
(Already fed with store of massy brands), 
It blazes soon ; nine bandages it bears, 
And as they each disjoin (so custom wills), 
A mighty jug of sparkling cyder's brought. 
With brandy mixt to elevate the guests. 

The brands were originally saved, that they might serve to 
relight the Christmas fire the following year : 

"With the last year's brand 
Light the new blocks. 

There is a superstition that misfortune will follow in any 
house where the fagot is not burned. It is common to hear the 
claim that the fagot has been burned in this or that house for so 
many centuries. 

At Taunton there used to be an annual " Ash Fagot ball." The 
fagot was bound with three withes, which were severally chosen 
to represent them by the young people present, — the first withe 
that broke in the fire signifying that they who selected it would 
be the first to be married. 

Ass, Feast of the. A burlesque ceremony (a sort of vari- 
ant of the Feast of Fools, q. v.) once highly popular in Northern 
France, in which priests and congregation joined to parody the 
services of the Church. It seems to have been instituted in 
good faith, and without any intentional irreverence, in part per- 
haps as a means of attracting the godless and the ignorant to 



74 CURIOSITIES OF 

church through their sense of humor. Bui eventually it de- 
generated into scurrilous indecency. In the fifteenth century it 
was prohibited by ecclesiastical authority, but in many localities 
was not fully suppressed until much later. The Festum Asinorum 
was variously celebrated in various cities. In Rouen it occurred 
shortly before Christmas, and consisted in the representation of 
a little farce in whose principal scene Balaam's ass (a priest con- 
cealed between the legs of an ass) appeared before the altar 
of the cathedral and predicted the early coming of Christ. In 
Beauvais the feast was far more elaborate. It was celebrated on 
Circumcision Day (January 1). Before the beginning of vespers 
an ass richly caparisoned, sometimes riderless, sometimes witli 
a maiden on its back, was led up to the principal door of the 
church. Two criers chanted in a loud voice the following Latin 
verses : 

Lux hodie, lux Isetitiae ! me judice, tristis 
Quisquis erit, revomendus erit solemnibus istis. 

Laeta volunt, quicunque colunt asinaria festa. 
Sunt hodie procul invidise, procul omnia moesta. 

("Light to-day, the light of joy ! Believe me, whoever is sad shall be 
cast out from these solemnities. Those who celebrate the feast of the Ass 
wish only gayety. Par from here to-day the sentiment of envy, far from 
here all that is sad.") 

Two canons then conducted the ass (the rider, if any, having 
dismounted) to a table, where a celebrant called the prechantrc 
opened the ceremonies by chanting a burlesque ditty beginning, — 

Orientis partibus 
Adventavit asinus, 
Pulcher et fortissimus, 
Sarcinis aptissimus. 
Hez ! sire ane ! Hez I 

Hie in collibus Sichem 
Jam nutritus sub Eeuben, 
Transiit per jordanem, 
Saliit in Bethlehem. 
Hez ! sire ane ! Hez ! 

(" From the Orient 
Comes an ass. 
Beautiful and strong, 
Able for burdens. 
Hey ! • master Ass ! Hey ! 

In the hills of Sichem 
Brought up under Reuben, 
He crossed the Jordan, 
And leaped into Bethlehem. 
Hey ! master Ass ! Hey !") 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 75 

The congregation all joined in the chorus as a response. 
Vespers were then read. But into the services were introduced 
fragments of other offices, joyful and sad, bits of prose and 
verse, an olio, in short, of sacred and profane literature. At 
intervals the ass was given to eat and drink. Finally clergy and 
people danced around him with loud imitations of braying. 
Then the congregation was led into the street by the prechantre, 
preceded by an enormous lantern. Booths had been fitted up 
before the church, where ribald farces were performed. There 
were more songs and dances, at the end of which the prechantre 
was deluged with water. The occasion wound up with a mid- 
night mass, a burlesque of the regular mass, as the vespers had 
been of regular vespers. At its conclusion the priest brayed 
thrice instead of saying, " Ite missa est," and the people answered, 
"Hin ban," in lieu of "Deo gratias." (See also Palm Sunday.) 

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. A festival celebrated 
by the Catholic Church on August 15. Butler asserts that it 
was established before the sixth century. According to tradition, 
the Blessed Yirgin, after the death of her son, lived under the 
care of St. John, and died at Jerusalem, where her empty tomb 
was shown to pilgrims in the seventh century. Her body was 
believed to have been preserved irom corruption and united to 
her soul in the kingdom of heaven. It is true that there is no 
distinct assertion of the corporal assumption in the prayers of 
the feast, nor is that corporal assumption a necessary article of 
faith, but that the Catholic Church encourages the belief is 
apparent from the fact that among the lessons used during the 
octave is a passage from St. John Damascene in which the 
legend of the Assumption is given in detail. And this is the 
legend. When the Virgin Mary had reached the age of seventy- 
three she was stricken with mortal sickness. The apostles, 
miraculously summoned from all parts of the earth, surrounded 
her death-bed, all save Thomas, who was late as usual. The 
latter, arriving after the funeral, gained permission to have the 
tomb opened, in order that he might once more gaze upon the 
features of the mother of the Eedeemer. When, lo ! a miracle ! 
The body had disappeared, leaving behind it only a bunch of 
lilies. Another legend relates that Mary was taken up bodily 
into heaven in the actual presence of the apostles. 

Bishop Hall tells us in the " Triumphs of Eome" that upon 
this day it was customary to implore blessings upon herbs, plants, 
roots, and fruits. It is to this that Naogeorgus alludes : 

The blessed Virgin Marie's feast hath here his place and time, 
Wherein, departing from the earth, she did the heavens clime; 



76 CURIOSITIES OF 

Great bundles then of hearbes to church, the people fast doe beare, 

The which against all hurtfull things, the priest doth hallow theare. 

Thus kindle they and nourish still the peoples wickednesse. 

And vainly make them to believe, whatsoever they expresse : 

For sundrie witchcrafts by these hearbes are wrought and divers charmes, 

And cast into the fire, are thought to drive away all harmes, 

And every painefull griefe from man, or beast, for to expell, 

Far otherwise than nature or the worde of God doth tell. 

[The Popish Kingdom^ trans, by Barnaby Googe.) 

In many parts of Catholic Europe the festival of the Assump- 
tion is celebrated with great splendor and pageantry, Howell 
tells us that in his day it was kept under the name of Bara at 
Messina in Sicily : " An immense machine of about fifty feet 
high is constructed to represent heaven ; and in the midst is 
placed a young female personating the Virgin, with an image of 
Jesus in her right hand ; round the Yirgin twelve little children 
turn vertically, representing so many seraphim, and below them 
twelve children turn horizontally, as cherubim ; lower down in 
the machine a sun turns vertically, with a child at the extremity 
of each of the four principal radii of his circle, who ascend and 
descend w4th his rotation, yet always in an erect posture; and 
still lower, within seven feet of the ground, are placed twelve 
boys, who turn horizontally around the principal figure, exhibit- 
ing thereby the Twelve Apostles. All are assembled to witness 
the decease and assumption of the Yirgin. The machine is 
drawn through the main streets, and families regard it as a 
favor to have their children admitted to the divine exhibition, 
though the little ones do not seem to appreciate the honor of 
being apostles, cherubim, and seraphim." 

In France the festival assumed a national character when 
Louis XIII. chose this day to place his kingdom under the 
patronage of the Blessed Yirgin, asking her to intercede for him 
that he might obtain from heaven the gift of a dauphin. 
Napoleon I. and afterwards IS'apoleon III. re-established the 
feast as a national one. Napoleon I., indeed, is said to have 
changed the real date of his birthday to make it coincide with 
the feast of the Assumption. 

Athanasius, St. The festival of this saint is celebrated on 
May 2, the anniversary of his death (373), as likewise of the 
translation of his remains to St. Sophia. The Greeks, however, 
who nevertheless celebrate on the date of the translation, place 
his death on January 18. Athanasius is one of the four Greek 
Fathers of the Church, and the author of the creed which bears 
his name. An Alexandrian and a pupil of St. Anthony, he de- 
voted himself first to worldly learning, but, being converted, he 
turned his studies into religious channels and became one of the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



77 



greatest theologians of his day. At the Council of Nice in 325 
he stood forth as the opponent of Arius, earning for himself the 
title of the " Father of Orthodoxy." He became Bishop of 
Alexandria, and spent his whole life in conflict with the Arians, 
achieving a final victory only at the cost of exile and other hard- 
ships. He was bishop forty six years, twenty of which were 
spent in exile. He was originally buried in Alexandria, but 
the remains were translated to the church of St. Sophia in 
Constantinople. 

Athos, Mount. One of the three tongues of the Chalcidian 
peninsula on the jEgean Sea. The entire peninsula, as well as 
the mount itself, is generally known as the Holy Mountain (Gr. 
"Aywv "Opoq ; It. Monte Santo), from the great number of mon- 
asteries and chapels of the Greek faith with which it is covered. 
There are twenty of the convents, most of which were founded 
during the Byzantine Empire, and some of them trace their 
origin to the time of Constantine the Great. St. Helena is tra- 
ditionally reputed to have been the first founder of convents on 
Mount Athos. The spot is visited periodically by pilgrims from 
Eussia, Servia, Bulgaria, Greece, Asia Minor, and all other 
" orthodox" communities. The society owe the privileges which 
they enjoy under the Turks to the fact that before the fall of 
Constantinople they submitted to Mohammed II., who gave 
them his protection and guaranteed their privileges, which favor 
his successors have continued. The community maintains an 
armed guard of forty or fifty Christian soldiers. The only 
Mohammedan allowed to reside within the peninsula is one 
Turkish officer, who is the means of communication between the 
Sultan and the monks. Even he cannot have a woman in his 
house ; all female animals of whatever species are rigidly ex- 
cluded. 




August. Harvesting. 



August. The eighth month in the modern calendar. In the 
old Roman calendar it was originally the sixth month, and was 
hence known as Sextilis. It then consisted of twenty-nine days. 
Julius Caesar's reformed calendar extended it to thirty days. 



78 CURIOSITIES OF 

Augustus added still another day to it, which he took from 
February, and renamed it in his own honor. He chose August 
rather than his birth -month of September because in the first 
place it came immediately after the month named in honor of 
his great prototype, Julius Csesar, and in the second because it 
had proved itself a propitious season in his life. 

August, Twelfth of. In England this day marks the 
beginning of the shooting season. For days if not weeks 
previous the minds of a large mass of the titled and wealthy 
classes are occupied, to the exclusion of almost everything else, 
in preparations for the moors. The game-keepers on every great 
estate send down to London bulletins as to the condition of the 
birds. Parliament invariably adjourns just before this date, for 
if it did not both bouses would be left without a quorum. 

Something of the excitement attending the occasion may be 
understood from an excellent article in Harjpefs Magazine^ vol. 
xlvii. p. 567, 1873. The writer, an American, had been invited 
by an English nobleman to visit him at his manor-house for two 
weeks' shooting. The letter of invitation concluded as follows: 

" Don't fail to come on Saturday, as all my guests will arrive 
on that day, and we shall take the field at eight o'clock on 
Monday morning [Monday being the 12th]. This game-killing 
is a sort of solemn duty with us squires ; we go through it in 
the usual sad manner of Englishmen enjoying themselves ; in- 
deed, a real game-keeping, squire, who lives for nothing else (and 
there are many of this class), is one of the curious creations of 
modern civilization. But it is amusing enough for a time, and I 
have no doubt that you will enjoy it. . . . My house is 1300 feet 
above the level of the sea, and we shoot over ground going up to 
2200 feet. Some of our scenery is considered to be among the 
finest in England." 

The invited guest found the trains all late and crowded with 
gentlemen bound for the moors of England, Ireland, and Scot- 
land, accompanied by their servants, dogs, guns, and huge piles 
of baggage, including ample supplies of solid and liquid ammu- 
nition. Nevertheless the journey was safely accomphshed. 

" Punctually at seven on Monday, the 12th of August, the 
valet entered, threw aside the heavy curtains of my chamber 
windows, and, while I was taking my morning bath, laid out my 
shooting-suit, and announced breakfast at half-past seven. At 
eight o'clock we w^ere driven down to the game-keeper's, and, 
selecting six dogs from the kennel, we started for the moor, 
where we were that day to open the campaign of 1872, followed 
in another vehicle by the six game-keepers and dogs. Eeaching 
our shooting ground, a distance of five miles from the manor- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 79 

house, we were divided into parties of two each, accompanied 
by the same number of pointers and keepers carrying the game- 
bags, each squad taking by agreement diiferent directions, with 
the understanding that we were to meet at the appointed rendez- 
vous for lunch at one o'clock. Our guns being loaded, and each 
gentleman carrying fifty rounds in his pouch, and the pointers 
enfranchised from their couples, the three parties separated, and 
took off their several ways, the dogs bounding and barking 
around us with joy." 

It is pleasant to chronicle that in the shooting that followed 
the American did his share of the killing. The rendezvous for 
lunch was kept, and promptly at two the party separated again 
and set out in the same order as before on the various routes 
assigned by the chief game-keeper. 

" With an instinct and training that obey the slightest word 
or wave of the hand, the dogs again range over the moors, and 
again are soon heard the fusilados from hill, valley, and moun- 
tain-side. After a capital afternoon's shooting we again assemble 
at half-past six at a farm-yard, where the carriage is in waiting 
for us. As each party came in, the bags were emptied, and the 
result of the day's sport was spread out before us, the grouse 
being placed in lines of twenty, with the hares and snipe in the 
rear, and summing up as follows : two hundred and sixty-four 
grouse, seven hares, and eight snipe. After seeing the game 
placed in large baskets, and resigning our guns to the attend- 
ants, we were driven to the hall. . . . 

" At the front door we were met b}' servants and slippers, which 
latter were a pleasant exchange for our wet and heavy shooting- 
boots. Going to our rooms to dress for dinner (after receiving our 
letters, which arrived during the afternoon of each day, together 
with the London morning papers), I found a hot bath prepared for 
me, and my evening dress laid out in an artistic manner by the 
servant assigned to my service. Descending to the drawing- 
room at eight o'clock, we proceeded to dinner. And such a dinner ! 
'Twould have tempted a dyspeptic anchorite, while our nine 
hours of hard walking and 'carrying weight,' as the Country 
Parson says, had given us tremendous appetites, that would have 
served as sauce and seasoning for even such soldiers' fare as 
was served out to us at Yicksburg. 

"The following morning I was called as before, my shooting- 
suit laid out for me, and my evening dress placed carefully in the 

armoire. After breakfast Lord desired us to write the 

address on parchment tags lying on his desk of any friends to 
whom we desired to send some grouse. This done, the steward 
received orders to attach them to little hampers containing six 
brace of birds each, and have them forwarded to their various 



80 CURIOSITIES OF 

destinations by that day's trains, the charges being prepaid. All 
being prepared for a start, our boots, which had been carefully 
dried during the night and oiled, were brought out and put on, and 
we were, as before, driven to the game-keeper's to select dogs for 
the day, when we proceeded to fresh shooting-grounds, on a 
different portion of the estate from where we had been the 
previous day, — the attendants following in a carry-all drawn by 
two horses, and bringing with them the dogs and shooting para- 
phernalia, including the guns, cleaned and oiled, like the boots, 
every night. 

"The succeeding days of the week were substantially repe- 
titions of the first, and it is therefore unnecessary to describe 
them. 

" On Saturday guests who had been invited for a week took 
their departure, others arriving the same evening and the follow- 
ing Monday morning to occupy their places. All of my readers 
may not possibly know that in England persons are usually 
invited to a country-house for a certain period, and at the ex- 
piration of the time are expected to take their departure, other 
guests having been previously asked to occupy their rooms. 
You may be invited to come on a stated day and spend a week : 
if you arrive behind the time fixed, you simply curtail by so 
many days the period that you are expected to remain." 

Augustalia or Augustales, Ludi. Ancient games in honor 
of Augustus celebrated in Eome and other parts of the Eoman 
Empire. After the battle of Actium a quinquennial festival 
was instituted at Eome, and the birthday of Augustus, as well 
as the day on which the victory was announced at Eome, was 
regarded as a festival day. Quinquennial games were also in- 
stituted in the provinces. On the return of Augustus from 
Greece to Eome in e.g. 19 the day on which he returned was 
made a festival and called Augustalia. 

The formal recognition of the games was made at the begin- 
ning of the reign of Tiberius. They were exhibited annually in 
the Circus. In ISTaples the Augustalia were celebrated with 
great splendor every fifth j^ear. They consisted of gymnastic 
and musical contests, and lasted for several days. They were 
also celebrated at Alexandria, and at numerous other places 
throughout the Eoman Empire. 

Augustine or Austin, St., patron of theologians and learned 
men. His day is August 28. Though not converted until his 
thirty-third year, he became one of the greatest names in the 
Church. He died Bishop of Hippo, in a.d. 430. His usual 
attribute in Christian art is a flaming heart, symbolizing the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 81 

ardor of his piet3\ Sometimes it is transfixed by a sword, to 
express the poignancy of his repentance for having delayed his 
conversion, in spite of the prayers of St. Monica, his mother. 
Occasionally he is represented with only a pen and a book. 

The saint was buried in the church of St. Stephen at Hippo, 
but according to Bede his body was fifty years later taken 
to Sardinia by the bishops whom Huneric had banished. They 
remained in that island till Luitprand, the pious and magnificent 
king of the Lombards, purchased them from the Saracens. He 
placed them in a coffin of lead enclosed in another of silver, and 
that again within a coffin of marble, and hid the whole under a 
brick wall in the church of St. Peter in Pavia. Here they were 
discovered in the year 1695. Pope Benedict XIII. declared 
them to be authentic in 1728. On account of its possession 
of this treasure, the church of St. Peter changed its name to 
St. Augustine. The relics have since been translated to the 
cathedral. Some portions were in 1837 given to the diocese of 
Algiers and placed on the ruined site of Hippo. 

Another famous saint of the same name was the apostle to 
England sent over by Pope Gregory the Great in the year 596. 
He converted King Ethelbert of Kent, and so introduced Chris- 
tianity into the island. This saint's festival is celebrated on 
May 26, the anniversary of his death in 604. His body, after 
several translations, found its last resting-place in a marble tomb 
in the cathedral at Canterbury. His head was put into a rich 
shrine ornamented with gold and precious stones in the year 
1221. All the shrines in the cathedral were broken up at the 
time of the Eeformation, and their contents were destroyed. 

Auray, Pardon of. A famous festival celebrated at Auray 
in Brittany in honor of St. Anne, mother of the Blessed Yirgin, 
on July 25 and 26, the eve and the day of her feast. The 
legend runs that in 1623 the saint appeared to a peasant named 
Yves Nicolazie and directed him to induce good Christians to re- 
build her chapel at Auray, which had been in ruins for nearly 
ten centuries. ISTicolazie's pastor thought him crazed, but his 
bishop patronized him. Soon after a broken effigy of wood was 
found in a field, and, being identified as St. Anne's, attracted 
pilgrims from far and near, who left behind them offerings 
sufficient to build a chapel in which the relic might be enshrined. 
This, together with a holy well adjoining, and a scala santa, or 
sacred staircase, by which the chapel was reached, became the 
resort of the most numerous and remarkable pilgrimages in 
Brittany, which have been lent additional prestige through the 
attendance of such pious and exemplary Chjistians as Louis 
XIV. and Louis Napoleon, besides an innumerable multitude of 

6 



82 CURIOSITIES OF 

other kings, queens, dukes, countesses, and burgesses and peas- 
antry without end. It is stated that as many as eighty thousand 
have been known to assemble at St. Anne at a single festival. 

Hence the church at Auray has come to be known as the 
milch -cow of the Bishop of Vannes (in whose diocese it lies), 
such being the wealth it brings into his coffers. 

Even before July 25 the pilgrims begin to pour into the 
village. They come on foot and on horseback, in carts and in all 
manner of strange vehicles, in steamboats down the river Auray, 
in railway carriages by the Chemin de Fer de F Quest. They 
come singly and in companies. Sometimes an entire family 
will make the journey, the weak and aged supported by the 
young and stalwart, the mother, mayhap, carrying her new-born 
babe. The inhabitants of the Isle Dieu are not deterred by the 
sixty leagues which they have to traverse from paying their 
annual homage to St. Anne. Sailors, also, in pursuance of some 
vow made in time of peril, will flock hither, bareheaded and 
barefooted, from any point of the coast where they have landed 
or been cast ashore. 

No household can prosper, no ships be safe at sea, nor crops or 
cattle thrive, unless once a year the people for miles around 
come to burn their candles at St. Anne's shrine. 

By the morning of the 25th a vast crowd has gathered in the 
open square near the church of St. Anne. Some congregate 
around the miraculous well, drinking of its healing waters or 
washing their hands, feet, and faces in its basins ; others find a 
temporary repose on the ground or on the steps of the neighbor- 
ing amphitheatre ; while the more indefatigable make the round 
of the chapel walls, or of the cloistered galleries of the church, 
bareheaded and with lighted tapers in their hands, or climb up 
the scala santa on their knees to kiss the statues in the chapel. 
The latter is a small edifice, open to the air and surmounted by a 
cupola, which is approached on all sides by the sacred stairway. 

In the afternoon a procession of male pilgrims is formed, who 
move solemnly around the town, headed by the priests. The 
green-and-gold vestments of the latter, the white robes and 
crimson sashes of the acolytes, the quaint costumes of the 
peasantry enlivened with beads, medals, and other gewgaws, the 
lighted tapers, the silver crucifixes, the flags and banners carried 
high in air, the fanfare of the band, the chanting of the litanies, 
make up a memorable sight. The surging crowds press as near 
as they can, leaving only a narrow lane for the return to the 
scala santa. When this is reached, the priests and their attend- 
ants crowd upon the steps, and the Bishop of Vannes or some 
other dignitary, mounting to the platform, addresses the crowd. 

Beginning at four o'clock on the morning of the 26th, con- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. ^^ 

tinuous masses are said in the church, and crowds pour in and 
out incessantly. Meanwhile outside in the square a thriving 
business is done by the booths, which dispense toys, rosaries, 
medals, and statuettes of St. Anne. Women cook fish and 
galettes (cakes), itinerant venders hawk gigantic wax candles, 
peep-shows and games attract the more volatile, and families 
gather in the cafes or the open fields. 

Whit Monday is the occasion of another pilgrimage, of less 
importance, yei that attracts its hundreds to the other's thou- 
sands. This is the date chosen by the sailors of the commune 
of Arzon, at the extremity of the peninsula of Ehins, to fulfil 
a vow made by their fathers during a naval combat with the 
Dutch. They embark with their wives and children, at Port 
]N"avalo, on board luggers with red sails, having at the head of 
the flotilla a richly decked vessel, in which are the clergy of the 
parish in charge of a massive silver crucifix. 

Auriesville. The shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in this 
New York village, commemorating the spot where, in the early 
missionary days, Jesuit priests and others suffered for the faith, 
has earned it the title of the American Lourdes. Here the 
League of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Indians formerly 
held sway over the country between the Mohawk and Genesee 
rivers. Auriesville is situated on the left bank of the Mohawk. 
On August 14, 1642, the Jesuit father Isaac Jogues, his attend- 
ants Eene Goupil and William Couture, and several Christian 
Hurons, were brought here and underwent a long series of in- 
dignities and tortures. Eene was finally killed on September 29. 
The others were allowed to escape. In 1644 Father Jogues es- 
tablished here the Mission of the Martyrs, where on October 18, 
1646, he was tortured and slain by the Mohawks. The thirty- 
eight years that followed his martyrdom were eventful to the 
Mission. Many priests and Christian laymen were tortured here 
to make an Indian holiday. Among the Indian converts the 
most famous was the Iroquois maiden Catherine Tegakwitha 
(1656-1680), " the Lily of the Mohawk," who after laboring for 
the conversion of her fellow-Indians was forced to flee to Caugh- 
nawaga, near Montreal, where her remains are kept to this day 
as a precious treasure by her own Indian people. At the begin- 
ning of the year 1684 the missions among the Mohawks were 
abandoned, on account of the French and English wars. In 
1884, just two centuries later, nearly the whole site of the 
ancient village, ten acres in all, came into the possession of the 
Society of Jesus. A small octagonal chapel, large enough for an 
altar, a priest, and his servers, was built on the brow of the hill, 
— where once was the Indian torture-platform, — the gilt cross 



84 CURIOSITIES OF 

that surmounts it being visible far down the valley. A glass 
plate in the front door enables visitors to pray in sight of the 
altar during the seasons when the oratory is closed. Pilgrim- 
ages have been made to this shrine every year since 1885 during 
the months of July and August. In August a daily mass is 
said in the chapel by one of the Jesuit fathers. The feast of the 
Assumption, August 15, and its eve, which is the anniversary of 
the first public torture of Father Jogues and Groupil, are the 
days which draw ihe largest number of pilgrims. Many miracu- 
lous cures have been reported at the shrine. 

At the twenty-seventh private session of the Third Plenary 
Council of Baltimore the committee on new business reported 
the petition of the fathers of the Society of Jesus to the Holy 
See for the introduction of the cause of the beatification of 
Father Jogues, Eene Groupil, and Catherine Tegakwitha. The 
council unanimously subscribed to the postulate. 

Austerlitz, La Sainte. The colloquial name under which 
the anniversary of the battle of Austerlitz, December 2 (1805), 
is celebrated at the military schools in France. At the college 
of St.-Cyr the cadets all join a torchlight parade, singing the 
Saint-Cyrienne : 

Noble galette, que ton nom 

Soit immortel dans notre histoire ; 

Qu'il soit embelli par la gloire 

D'une vaillante promotion ! 

The whole ends by a magnificent pyrotechnic display on the 
parade-ground. In the bedrooms afterwards the cadets indulge 
in a mimic attack upon the plateau of Stratzen, mattresses 
serving as barricades and pillows as weapons, and it is needless 
to say that the height is always successfully stormed. 

Azan. (Arabic, "Announcement.") The Mohammedan call 
or summons to public prayer proclaimed by the Muezzin, or 
crier, — in small mosques from the side of the building or at the 
door, and in large mosques from the minaret. The words of 
the call are as follows : " God is most great ! {four times.') I 
testify that there is no God but God ! {twice.) I testify that 
Mohammed is the apostle of God! {twice.) Come to prayer! 
{twice.) Come to salvation ! {twice.) God is most great ! {twice.) 
There is no God but God!" 

At the early morning Azan, after the words " Come to 
salvation !" are added, " Prayer is better than sleep ! Prayer is 
better than sleep ! " 

When the Azan is recited it is usual for every one in hearing 
to respond to each call. The first three responses are a mere 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 85 

repetition of the words of the Muezzin. To the cry " Come to 
prayer!" the response is, "I have no power nor strength but 
from God the most High and Great ;" to the " Come to salvation !" 
" What God willeth will be ; what he willeth not will not be." 

The recital of the Azan must be listened to with great rever- 
ence. If a person be walking at the time, he should stand still ; 
if reclining, sit up. The Muezzin, a paid official of the mosque, 
must stand with his face towards Mecca and the points of his 
forefingers in his ears. Four classes of people are debarred 
from becoming Muezzins, — the unclean, the intemperate, the 
insane, and the female. The Azan was estabUshed by Moham- 
med himself, and tradition has invented the following legend : 
While the matter was under discussion a certain Abdullah 
dreamed that he met a man in green raiment carrying a bell. 
Abdullah sought to buy it, saying it would do well for bringing 
together the assembly of the faithful. " 1 will show thee a 
better way," replied the stranger : " let a crier cry aloud, ' God 
is most great,' etc." Waking from his sleep, Abdullah sought 
the presence of Mohammed, and related to him his dream. 

All lovers of poetry will remember Edwin Arnold's lines 
beginning 

He who died at Azan sends 

This to comfort all his friends. 



Babylas, St. (237-250). A bishop of Antioeh, who was 
martyred in the Decian persecution. In the Eastern Church his 
festival is September 4, in the Western, January 24. Histori- 
cally he is famous for compelling the Emperor Philip, on a 
visit to Antioeh, to take his place among the penitents and 
undergo penance for the murder of Gordian, as a condition pre- 
cedent to his reinstatement in church membership. In legend 
he is still more famous for that his relics are said to have 
silenced the revived oracle of Apollo during the reign of Julian 
the Apostate. Julian, furious, ordered the relics to be removed. 
On that very night the temple and statue of Apollo were de- 
stroyed by lightning. 

Bacon. As is well known, swine were held unclean animals 
by the Jews, and their flesh was forbidden by Moses. This 
taboo is still kept up. Hence our English forefathers loved to 
show their abhorrence of Judaism by eating a gammon of bacon 
on Easter, the day on which Christ was triumphant over his 



86 CURIOSITIES OF 

enemies. The custom is not extinct in some rural localities. 
But even in classic times bacon had a certain religious signifi- 
cance. Eobert Bell, in " Shakespeare's Puck and his Folk-Lore." 
ciies a passage in point from Spence's " Polymetis :" " Alba Longa 
is the place where ^neas met the white sow and thirty pigs ; 
and here was a very fine flitch of bacon kept in the chief temple, 
even in Augustus's time, I find recorded in that excellent his- 
torian, Dionysius Halicarnassus." 

In Tettan and Temme's " Yolk sage n" (1837) it is said, "A 
mighty deity of the heathen Prussians was Percunnos. An 
eternal fire was kept burning before him, fed by oak billets. He 
was the god of thunder and fertility, and he was therefore in- 
voked for rain and fair weather, and in thunderstorms the flitch 
of bacon (Speckseite) was off'ered to him. Even now, when it 
thunders, the boor in Prussia takes a flitch of bacon on his 
shoulder, and goes with his head uncovered out of the house, 
and carries it into the fields, and exclaims, ' O God, fall not on 
my fields, and I will give thee this flitch.' When the storm is 
passed he takes the bacon home and consumes it with his house- 
hold as a sacrifice." 

It is probably as the reward and symbol of fertility that a 
flitch of bacon used anciently to be presented to any married 
couple who, after a certain period of wedded life, could swear 
that they had never regretted taking the step. The most 
notable instance of this ceremony was at the priory of Dunmow 
(^. v.). 

Baddeley Cake. The eating of the Baddeley cake, or, as it 
is sometimes facetiously called, St. Baddeley's Cake, is an an- 
nual ceremony performed at the greenroom of Drurj^ Lane 
Theatre in London on the evening of the 6th of January. Its 
history is as follows. Eobert Baddeley, originally a cook, after- 
wards a valet, and lastly an actor, died in 1794, and by will set 
apart one hundred pounds as a fund whose income should be 
used to furnish a cake and a bowl of punch every Twelfth-Night 
to the Drury Lane greenroom, which by long custom had been 
annually given over on that night to feasting and merriment. 

Baddeley's bequest has been faithfully carried out, with the 
exception of one provision, that whenever the cake was eaten 
some commemoration should be made of his conjugal infelicity. 
In his lifetime his wife was better known than himself She 
sang well and danced charmingly, was beautiful and vivacious, 
and was said to have been the cause of more duels than any 
other woman of her time. Baddeley himself was an indifferent 
actor, though noteworthy in histrionic annals as the original 
Moses in " The School for Scandal." 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 87 

The present proprietor of Drury Lane has added a few hun- 
dred pounds of his own to the Baddeley gift, increased the bill 
of fare so that it includes a large number of dehcacies, and re- 
served the privilege of inviting distinguished outsiders, both lay 
and professional, to join in the ceremonials. The piece de resis- 
tance is still the large, round white cake, with red and green icing 
in the centre, which is known as St. Baddeley's Cake, and no 
guest goes away without securing a portion of it. 

Badrinath. A peak of the main Himalayan range, in the 
Northwestern Provinces of India, 22,901 feet above the sea. A 
shrine of Yishnu stands on one of its shoulders at a height of 
10,400 feet, about fifty-six miles northeast of Serinagur. This 
temple overhangs a sacred tank, which is supplied from a thermal 
spring. 

The annual number of pilgrims to the shrine is about fifteen 
thousand ; and every twelfth year, when the Kumbh Melah is 
celebrated there, the number rises to fifty thousand. Adoration 
of the idol, liberal fees to the attendant Brahmins, and ablution 
in the sacred tank, in which both sexes bathe indiscriminately, 
are believed to be efficacious in cleansing from past offences. 
The officiating priests are Brahmins from the Deccan, of which 
caste there are no women at Badrinath, so that they cannot 
marry ; but they are a very profligate set. 

Bairam or Beiram. The name of two Mohammedan feasts. 
The lesser Bairam, being celebrated at the termination of the 
great fast of Eamadan (q. v.), is to that extent the analogue of 
the Christian Easter. Then the Moslem world puts on its new 
clothes and comes out and rejoices over the return of sumptuary 
liberty. Visits and presents are exchanged. In Constantinople 
bands of music parade the streets, and the boats in the Bosporus 
are decorated with flags. In the palace of Dolma-baktche the 
Sultan receives his friends after worshipping at the mosque. He 
takes his seat on the throne in the centre of the vast audience- 
room. The grand vizier is received first. He presses to his fore- 
head a broad scarf or veil which is attached to the throne, and 
then bows low and withdraws. The Sheik-ul-Islam makes a feint 
at doing the same. But, being almost as high as the Sultan in 
religious rank, that sublime gentleman interrupts him and bows 
to him instead. The festivities are generally protracted over 
three days. 

The second or greater Bairam, known also as the Feast of the 
Sacrifices, is celebrated seventy days later. This is the culmi- 
nating ceremony of the pilgrimage to Mecca, but it has an 
individual significance as a commemoration of the wiUingness 



88 CURIOSITIES OF 

of Abraham to offer up his son Ishmael (not Isaac, as stated in 
the Bible). The Moslem story runs thus : After the foundation 
of Mecca by Abraham, God commanded him to prepare a feast. 
The patriarch asked what the Lord would have served for the 
occasion, and the answer w^as, " Offer up thy son Ishmael." So 
Abraham placed Ishmael on his back with his head towards the 
black stone. But the patriarch's hand trembled, and the knife 
dropped out of it. Thereupon Ishmael told him to cover his 
eyes with the end of his turban and strike blindfolded. Abra- 
ham obeyed, and striking felt the blood gush forth from the 
victim. " God is great !" he cried. But, lo! when he unbound 
his eyes, a dying ram lay at his feet, which the archangel Gabriel 
had substituted for Ishmael. In memory of this deliverance of 
the patriarch's son, from whom Mohammed and his followers 
claimed descent, sacrifices of goats and sheep are offered by all 
who can afford them. These animals it is believed will reappear 
after death to help the souls of the offerers across the bridge 
that leads to paradise. Hence the richer Moslems, in a spirit of 
altruistic charity, frequently supply their more indigent brethren 
with victims to sacrifice. 

Balaam's Ass Sunday. In Gloucestershire this was the 
name formerly given to the second Sunday after Easter, when 
the story of Balaam was read in the lesson for the day. Notes 
and Queries (Seventh Series, vol. v. p. 426) mentions Eandwich 
Church, near Stroud, and Hawkesbury Church, near Chipping- 
Sodbury, as places where this custom survived up to the middle 
of the nineteenth century, and suggests that this was probably 
a relic from the days of Miracle Plays. 

Bambino, II (It., " The Babe"), or, as it is frequently called, 
II Santissimo Bambino (" The Most Holy Babe"). A figure 
of the child Jesus in the Franciscan church of Ara Coeli at 
Rome. It is reputed to heal the sick and to possess other miracu- 
lous virtues. The festival of the Bambino, which occurs on 
Epiphany (January 6), is a gorgeous spectacle, and is attended 
by the faithful in Rome and the peasants for miles around. 
The Bambino, loaded with jewels, is placed in a presepio, or 
manger, and all day long the people pass in an endless procession 
before the stolid features and unblinking eyes, beseeching some 
favor, — health for themselves or for a loved one, a successful 
number in the lottery, the safe return of a friend from afar, or 
the fulfilment of any desire, serious or trivial. 

The same church of Ara Coeli used to be the scene of a curi- 
ous performance on Christmas. Opposite the lifelike representa- 
tion of the stable of Bethlehem, called the Presepio, was placed 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 89 

a tribune, or palco, on which a number of baby orators succes- 
sively took their places and preached, or recited little speeches 
prepared beforehand descriptive of the birth of our Lord and 
his early childhood. 

The Bambino often goes out to attend the sick, especially 
women in childbirth, being driven from door to door in a large 
tan-colored coach floating a vermilion flag. Two monks act as 
its attendants. The fees paid for its presence at the sick-bed 
are always large, and in case of recovery the gratuitous offerings 
subsequently made are frequently magnificent. 

There are several legends of its miraculous powers. Once 
when it was left over-night in a house it returned next morning 
of its own volition, and all the bells in the churches and con- 
vents rang out a merry peal of salutation without any human 
aid. On another occasion a woman desiring the Bambino to 
stay with her longer than was necessary had a false image made, 
which she sent back to the church in its stead. The true Bam- 
bino was so indignant that on its own little bare feet it went 
back to the church. When an astonished monk opened the 
door it strode straight past him to its accustomed niche. 

It is said the image was carved at Jerusalem by a Franciscan 
monk out of a piece of wood from the Mount of Olives. Though 
possessed of great skill in carving, this monk was not an adept 
in the use of pigments. In despair he resorted to fasting and 
prayer. He fell into a deep sleep, and when he awoke he found 
the little olive-wood image tinted a beautiful flesh color. JSTow, 
it is well known that St. Luke is the chosen painter to the Holy 
Family, and it was instantly surmised that this was his work. 
The monk decided to send it to the church of Ara Coeli, and, 
although the vessel that bore it suffered shipwreck on the way, 
the Bambino itself was washed safe ashore at Leghorn, whence 
it was sent to Rome. 

There are similar images known as Bambinos in Catholic 
churches elsewhere. In England the most notable are preserved 
in the Trappist monasteries at Kensington, Staplehill in Dor- 
set, and Mount St. Bernard in Leicestershire. The ceremony of 
the Adoration of the Bambino is performed here on Christmas 
morning. As soon as the midnight of Christmas Eve has passed 
and the holy day has arrived, the monastery bells ring joyfully 
out, and all the monks arise to attend early service in the con- 
vent chapel. Mass is celebrated, and as soon as the host is re- 
turned to the tabernacle the officiating priest lifts a cloth and 
discloses the Bambino, — a little swathed waxen doll, whose 
wrappings leave exposed a tiny face and a pair of feet. The 
priest raises the Bambino and faces the bowed monks. The 
priests and monks circle round in procession from the front, and 



90 CURIOSITIES OF 

passing up, halt for a moment before the waxen image. Then, 
kneeling down, they reverently kiss the face and hands, cross 
themselves, and pass on. This ceremony is performed only by 
the Trappist monks, and only at the Christmas season. 

Banian or Banyan Days. In the British navy there were 
at first two days and afterwards one day in the week on which 
no allowance of meat was made to the crew. These have now 
been abolished, but the term is still applied among sailors gener- 
ally to days of poor fare. It is possibly derived from banian, 
the East Indian fig, as a general symbol of vegetarian fare, but 
a more likely suggestion is that it comes from the merchants 
and traders of the Banian sect, who scrupulously avoid the use 
of flesh meat and confine themselves to an ascetic diet. 

Bank Holiday. In Great Britain a weekday specially fixed 
.by law, whereon parties to negotiable paper are exempted from 
the obhgation of presentment, payment, etc. The banks there- 
fore, as well as the government offices, are closed on such a day, 
and business establishments of all sorts usually follow suit. It 
was Sir John Lubbock who was mainly instrumental in securing 
the passage of the bank holiday law in 1871, the days named 
being, in England and Ireland, Easter Monday, Whit Monday, 
the first Monday in August, and the 26th of December (Boxing 
Day) ; in Scotland, New Year's Day, the first Monday in May, 
the first Monday in August, and Christmas Day. At the August 
bank holiday it has now become well-nigh universal for em- 
ployers to close their shops or offices on the preceding Saturday 
also, so as to give their employees a three days' outing. 

The effect of the bank holiday law on all negotiable paper 
falling due on such a day is that it is made payable on the next 
following secular day, whereas paper falling due on Sunday is 
payable the preceding Saturday. 

Banners, Feast of. (Japanese, Nohori-no-Sekku.) A Japan- 
ese holiday in honor of male children, celebrated on the fifth 
day of the fifth month, which in the Europeanized calendar of 
Japan is now May 5. On every house that can boast of a male 
child is affixed a pole of bamboo, and floating therefrom are one or 
more gaud}^ fish made of paper. The exact number is determined 
by the number of boys in the household. The wind, blowing 
into the mouths of the fish, inflates them and makes them writhe 
and wriggle with a curiously lifelike motion. The fish are sup- 
posed to be carp, which in Japan are recognized symbols of 
health and long life. Other staifs support paper pennons of 
every color, while banners blazoned with heraldic devices float 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 91 

in the wind. Boys of all ages appear in the street in gala attire, 
some having little sabres in their belts, some bearing on their 
shoulders huge swords of wood, gayly painted and decorated, 
and others carrying miniature banners. 

Baptism. In the earliest days of the Christian Church those 
who were admitted into it by baptism were necessarily not in- 
fants, but adolescent or adult converts. These previously under- 
went a course of religious instruction, generally for two years. 
They were called during their pupilage " catechumens," a name 
afterwards applied to all infants before baptism. When such 
candidates were judged worthy to be received within the pale of 
the Church, their names were inscribed at the beginning of Lent 
on a list of the competent or " illuminated." On Easter or Pen- 
tecost Eve they were baptized, by three solemn immersions in 
honor of the Trinity, the first of the right side, the second of the 
left, and the third of the face. But, as the Arians found in this 
triple immersion an argument in favor of plurality of natures 
in the Godhead, Pope Gregory by a letter addressed to St. 
Leander of Seville ordained that in Spain, the then stronghold 
of Arianism, only one immersion should be practised. This pre- 
scription was preserved and applied to the Church universal by 
the sixth canon of the Council of Toledo in 633. The triple 
immersion was, however, persisted in in Ireland to the twelfth 
century. Infants were thus baptized by their fathers, or indeed 
by any other person at hand, either in water or in milk ; but the 
custom was abolished in 1172 by the Council of Cashel. 

The baptistery of the early church was one of the exedrce, or 
out-buildings, and consisted of a porch or anteroom, where adult 
converts made their confession of faith, and an inner room, where 
the actual baptism took place. Thus it continued till the sixth 
century, when baptisteries began to be taken into the church 
itself The font was always of wood or stone. Indeed, we find 
the provincial council held in Scotland in 1225 prescribing those 
materials as the only ones to be used. The Church in all ages 
discouraged private baptism. By the fifty-fifth canon of the 
same council, the water which had been used to baptize a child 
out of church was to be thrown into the fire, or carried imme- 
diately Jo the parish baptistery, that it might be employed for 
no other purpose; in like manner, the vessel which had held it 
was to be either burnt or consecrated for church use. For many 
centuries superstitious virtues were attributed to water which 
had been used for baptism. The blind bathed their eyes in it, 
in the hope of regaining their sight. It was said to " drown the 
devil" and to purify those who l]ad recoui'se to it. 

Baptism was by the early Church strictly forbidden during 



92 CURIOSITIES OF 

Lent, and every baptistery was closed during the fast and sealed 
up with the seal of the church. 

Christening fees originated at an early date. At first bisho, s 
and those who had aided in the ceremony of baptism were enter- 
tained at a feast. This was afterwards commuted to an actual 
payment of money. 

Both were afterwards forbidden. The forty-eighth canon of 
the Council of Elvira, held in 303, prohibits the leaving of money 
in the fonts, "that the ministers of the Church may not appear 
to sell that which it is their duty to give gratuitously." This 
rule was, however, as little observed in the Middle Ages as it 
has been since. Strype says that in 1560 it was enjoined by the 
heads of the Church that " to avoid contention, let the curate 
have the value of the ' chrisom,' not under fourpence, and 
above as they can agree, and as the state of the parents may 
require." The chrisom was the white cloth placed by the 
minister upon the head of a child which had been newly anointed 
with chrism, or hallowed ointment composed of oil and balm, 
always used after baptism. The gift of this cloth was usually 
made by the mother at the time of churching. To show how 
enduring such customs are, even after the occasion for them has 
passed away, we need only quote a passage from Morant's 
"Essex:" "In Denton Church there has been a custom, time 
out of mind, at the churching of a woman, for her to give a 
white cambric handkerchief to the minister as an offering." The 
same custom is kept up in Kent, as may be seen in Lewis's His- 
tory of the Isle of Thanet. 

In the county of Durham it is an old custom to give fruit cake 
and cheese to the first person met on the way to the church by 
a christening party. The Antiquary ior February, 1886, tells this 
story : " At Hexham a few Sundays ago some Wesleyan Sunday- 
school scholars met a christening party on Gilesgate Bank, and 
one of the women shouted to the foremost boy, ' Here, hinny, is 
some cheese and cake for you.' Some of the youngsters were 
much amused, and a division of the two slices of fruit loaf and 
its complement of cheese quickly took place." 

In Protestant churches the godmother holds the child until it 
is taken by the cleric ; in Catholic churches the child is held by 
the godfather over the font and the godmother takes it by the 
feet and holds them towards the west. The priest puts a lighted 
taper in the godfather's hand and the chrisom cloth over the 
child's head. 

Though baptism in its regenerative symbolism is unknown to 
non-Christians, there are in many parts of the world peculiar 
ceremonies attached to the giving of a name to a child. 

" Unless the father be very poor indeed," — writes Mrs. Bishop 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 93 

in her " Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan," — " he makes a feast 
for his friends on an auspicious day and invites the village 
mollahs. Sweetmeats are solemnly eaten after the guests have 
assembled. Then the infant, stiffened and mummied in its 
swaddHng clothes, is brought in and laid on the floor by one of 
the mollahs. Five names are written on five slips of paper, 
which are placed between the leaves of the Koran, or under 
the edge of the carpet. The first chapter of the Koran is then 
read. One of the slips is drawn at random, and a mollah takes 
up the child and pronounces in its ear the name found upon it, 
after which he places the paper on its clothes." This lottery- 
like proceeding over, the relations and friends give the babe 
presents according to their means, — a custom obviously analo- 
gous to our christening gifts. "Thereafter," continues Mrs. 
Bishop, " it is called by the name it has received. Among men's 
names there is a preponderance of those taken from the Old 
Testament, among which Ibrahim, Ismail, Suleiman, Yusuf, and 
Moussa are prominent. Abdullah, Mahmoud, Hassan, Raouf, 
Baba Houssein, Imam, are also common, and many names have 
the sufl&x of Ali among the Shiahs. Fatmeh is a woman's name, 
but girl-children usually receive the name of some flower or bird 
or fascinating quaUty of disposition or person." 

The incident of laying the child on the floor brings to mind 
the custom of the Japanese in the performance of this function. 

Mrs. C. M. Sawley, writing in the Asiatic Monthly, tells us that 
when a Japanese baby boy is a hundred days old he is carried to 
the priest's house in the Shinto temple, and there receives a 
compound name, from the family name and that of his guardian. 
" This guardian is generally the dearest friend of the family, 
and his duty is to watch over the child's future career. The dual 
name insures the bond of union between them. The priest writes 
down the name and gives it to the child to keep in his prayer-bag, 
as the sponsor's name has to be remembered continually before 
the household shrine. When prayers have been said over the 
child, he is placed on the floor and allowed for the first time to 
wander at his own sweet will whithersoever he chooses. Towards 
whichever cardinal point he turns, so will his future be in- 
fluenced." The Gohei, or sacred slips of paper, are held over 
the boy's head to propitiate the ancestral spirits so that they 
will induce him to turn in the right direction. Two fans are 
then presented to him, which in after-years will be exchanged 
for swords. 

In China the ceremony of naming the baby is accompanied by 
the shaving of all its hair. If it is a boy his relations and 
friends are invited to a feast the day his head is shaved, and 
many of them bring a present; in some parts of the country 



94 CURIOSITIES OF 

the present is always a silver plate, on which is engraved, " Long 
life, honors, and happiness." On this day the baby gets its name, 
but it does not keep it all its life : so this first name is called the 
milk name. A girl is generally called by her milk name till she 
marries ; but a boy gets a new name the first day he goes to 
school. 

Among the Parsees fire and water are both used in the naming 
ceremony. When a child is born, a priest waits on the parents 
at their own house, and, after he has made a note of the hour, 
moment, and circumstances of the child's introduction to the 
world, he calculates its nativity. He then consults the father 
and mother about a name, and, that point being settled, he pro- 
nounces the choice in the presence of the assembled friends. 
The child is washed, or dipped into a tub of water, and subse- 
quentl}^ taken to the church, where it is held for a few moments 
over a fire. 

A curious analogue of the Parsee ceremony existed in Scot- 
land, where it was once a common usage and still has its local 
survivals. After baptism the child was put into a clean basket, 
over which a cloth had previously been spread. Bread and 
cheese were laid upon the cloth, and the whole arrangement was 
then moved three times successively round the iron crook which 
hangs over the fire for the purpose of supporting the pot when 
water is boiled or victuals are prepared. The import of the 
proceeding is clearly shown in the words repeated three times, 
" Let the flame consume thee now or never." 

Barbara, St., patron of Ferrara, Mantua, and Guastalla ; 
also of fortifications and fire-arras, as well as of armorers and 
gunsmiths. She is invoked as a protector against lightning and 
explosions. The festival of this saint, December 4, is celebrated 
in Southern France and Southern Germany as the beginning 
of the Christmas season. Her relics are very numerous, es- 
pecially in Germany. But her legends, which are widely dis- 
crepant, are not accepted as authoritative by careful Catholic 
hagiologists. The very date of her death is as arbitrary as the 
fixing of the place where she suffered. But December 4, a.d. 
235, is the most favored date, and Heliopolis is as plausible a 
locality as Tuscany or Nicomedia, which are alternatively sug- 
gested. Legends generally agree that her father, whose name 
was Dioscorus, shut her up in a high tower lest she should 
attract suitors by her beauty. Somehow a trusty servant of 
Origen penetrated her seclusion, instructed her in Christianity, 
and baptized her. Her father proposed to make a bath-room 
in the tower, and she requested that three windows should be 
introduced, in honor of the three windows through which the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 95 

soul receives light, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 
Then her father knew that she was a Christian, and he car- 
ried her to a mountain where he himself beheaded her. Imme- 
diately a great tempest arose, and the lightning consumed the 
father. 

In Southern France the women in every house fill two and 
sometimes three plates with wheat or lentils, and then stand 
them in the warm ashes of the fireplace or on a sunny window- 
ledge to germinate. According as St. Barbara's grain grows 
well or ill, the harvest of the coming year will be good or bad. 
At what is known as the Great Supper on Christmas Eve the 
table is decorated with the growing grain as a symbol of the 
harvest that is to be. 

In Servia the peasants on the eve of this saint's feast boil all 
sorts of grain together in the same pot, which they leave near 
the fire during the night. The next morning they carefully 
observe on which side the boiling has most swelled the grain, 
and on this indication they sow the fields which extend in that 
direction. 

Barbecue. (From Sp. barbacoa, an attempt to transliterate 
a native Haytien term for a wooden framework supporting meat 
or fish to be smoked or dried over a fire.) In its most popular 
modern signification, a large social or political entertainment in 
the open air, at which sheep or oxen are roasted whole and all 
the feasting is conducted on a Gargantuan scale. 

Georgia is probably the native home of the barbecue, but it 
spread thence to most of the Southern and Southwestern States, 
and has even invaded some of the Northern ones. Georgia, 
however, still retains its supremacy as the Barbecue State. 
"The barbecue is to Georgia," says D. Allen Willey, in the 
Home- Maker's Magazine for December, 1896, " what the clam- 
bake is to Ehode Island, what a roast-beef dinner is to our 
Enghsh cousins, what canvas-back duck i-s to the Marylander, 
and what a pork-and-beans supper is to the Bostonian. The 
barbecue has done much for Georgia. It has played its part in 
politics, in social gatherings, in the entertainment of strangers, 
and in festivities generally. It has come to be a necessary part 
of all kinds of social functions, and the man who has visited 
Georgia and come away without a sample of barbecue viands is 
indeed to be commiserated. 

" The genius who prepared the first barbecue is unknown, 
although there are a dozen theories offered as to its origin. Get 
into a country store and sit on the cracker-box by the side of 
two or three Georgia ' colonels' and ' majors,' and they will tell 
any number of tales about how their ancestors bought their 



96 CURIOSITIES OF 

estates from the Indians and to close up the bargain gave the 
' noble red men' a barbecue, consisting of venison and sweetened 
hoe-cake, followed by plenty of imported rum and other ' fire- 
waters.' One thing is clear, and that is that game constituted 
the meat cooked in the barbecue of fifty years ago. As deer, 
bear, and other animals became scarce, oxen, sheep, and pigs 
took their places. The variety of viands increased until the 
barbecue of to-day may contain fish, beef, mutton, pork, vege- 
tables, and fowls. It depends much on the liberality of the givers 
and the number invited to participate. The popularity of this 
kind of entertainment is so great that it is enjoyed in cities as 
well as towns. Even in the wire-grass country, where possibly 
the white farmers live two or three miles apart, a half-dozen 
families will get together on a holiday, or some one's birthday, 
perhaps, kill a sheep or a pig, and have a barbecue. During the 
Atlanta Exposition a daily barbecue, at which three or four 
hundred persons were fed at once, was a feature. 

" As an aid to political campaigns, the barbecue exerts a power- 
ful influence. Many a man has been elected senator, or governor, 
or Congressman from this State by a majority secured largely 
through votes gained at barbecues. A canvass for the governor- 
ship of Georgia is not considered completed without a serres of 
these affairs, sometimes one in every county, given just before 
election, to which every one is invited." 

In other Southern and Western States the barbecue plays its 
part in the political game ; and it is not entirely unknown in 
New York. It was first introduced into that State in the Pres- 
idential campaign of 1876 by Eepublican managers, and the 
example so set has since been followed occasionally by members 
of both the great parties. 

On the morning of Wednesday, October 18, 1876, two huge 
oxen were paraded through the cities of New York and Brook- 
lyn and then taken to Myrtle Park in the latter city. 

There they were killed in the afternoon. By eleven in the 
evening one weighing nine hundred and eighty-three pounds 
was on the spit and in process of roasting over a coke fire. 
Though less picturesque than the old-fashioned pit, with its wood 
fire, its forked flames, and occasionally its superabundant smoke, 
this was found to be an improvement as a cooking apparatus. 
The coke fire was placed in tw^o large iron pans, ranged parallel 
to the spit, but not directly under the carcass, the heat being 
thrown on that by a peaked roof of the same metal stretched 
over the spit and about two feet from it. Between the two fires 
was a long dripping-pan, from which the meat was frequently 
basted with its own fat. The first ox was declared done at eight 
o'clock on Thursday morning (October 20), and was taken off to 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



97 



cool, while the other, over one thousand pounds in weight, took 
its place upon the spit. Even at that early hour some hundred 
or more curious citizens were on the ground, and the number 
kept steadily increasing until by noon over a thousand had 
arrived. The barbecue was then declared opened. All present 
were invited to a share of the ox which had been roasted during 
the morning. This had been cut up and with the aid of eight 
hundred loaves of bread turned into sandwiches. So great was the 
public demand that in twenty minutes the only vestiges left were 
the skeleton and such fragments as were unfit for food. The 
other ox was served up at night. Upwards of fifty thousand 
people in all participated in the exercises. Five speakers, at as 
many stands, simultaneously addressed audiences of thousands, 
while thousands more amused themselves in various ways in the 
grounds. 

Barberi, The. Until very recently this was the crowning 
sport of the Carnival in Eome, preserving even down to our time 




The Stakt of the Barberi. 



that element of cruelty which has been all through the ages one 
of the distinguishing features of the Eomans' taste in pleasure. 
The Barberi (so called because in old times the finest coursers 
of Barbary were used for this purpose) were in the latter days 

7 



98 CURIOSITIES OF 

some half-dozen horses of small value. They were taken to an 
appointed spot at the head of the Corso, where heated bits of 
iron and twisted wire were driven into their flesh and their 
haunches bedecked with spiked balls and flags. Maddened with 
pain, they were then allowed to dash riderless down the Corso, 
with a reckless indifl'erence to their own safety and that of the 
dense masses of people who choked the sidewalks, until stopped 
at the end of a mile by employees who held carpets in front of 
them. The owner of the winner bore off a prize banner. 

Formerly these races excited the greatest emulation among 
the noblest houses in Eome, and the winners would hang up the 
prize banners in their private chapels. Thus from the middle 
of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century we 
find all the most aristocratic names in Eome on the list of 
winners. In 1788, however, Goethe tells us, the horse-races 
were no longer confined to the aristocracy, but the middle and 
lower classes also took part in them : " The great men are parsi- 
monious ; they hold aloof from the proceedings." Finally they 
were entirely abandoned by the patrician to the plebeian. (See 
Agatha, St.) 

Barnabas, St., one of the patrons of Milan. His feast is on 
the day of his nativity, June 11. This unusual selection of a 
birthday in lieu of a death-day was partly due to the fact that 
he was not commemorated in either the East or the West until 
late. Florus of Lyons first introduced the name of St. Barnabas 
in the Western martyrology. Eadulph de Eivo, in the beginning 
of the fifteenth century, speaks of the feast of the saint as being 
generally observed then, but Paul III. was the first to allow 
proper lessons in the Breviary of Cardinal Quinones for this day. 
The Abyssinian Church commemorates St. Barnabas on Decem- 
ber 17. He was not one of the original twelve apostles, although 
he is styled an apostle by Luke (Acts xiv. 13). He accompanied 
Paul on his missions to the Jews and Gentiles, and tradition 
asserts that he carried the gospel to Milan. He is said to have 
been stoned to death by a heathen mob in Cyprus. 

Mark and other Christians buried him near the site of his 
martyrdom. More than four centuries later, in the time of 
the Emperor Zeno, his relics were found and removed to Con- 
stantinople, a stately church being erected over them and dedi- 
cated in his honor. It is said that the saint's skeleton arms 
clasped across his breast a copy of the Gospel according to St. 
Matthew, written in Hebrew by St. Barnabas himself. On the 
occupation of Cyprus by the Saracens in the seventh century, 
the head and some other relics of the saint are said to have been 
translated to Milan. The translation of these relics to a new 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 99 

shrine was made in 1521, and an annual festival instituted to 
commemorate it, to which the Pope attached an indulgence of a 
hundred years. 

Toulouse, however, claims to be in possession of rival relics in 
the church of St. Saturninus. May 27 is the feast of the In- 
vention of these to Toulouse. Saussaye in his " Galilean Mar- 
tyrology" says, "'the head is now exposed there to veneration, 
apart from the body, which reposes in its own shrine." This 
head was examined and verified in 1807 by Clement de Barbazan, 
Vicar- General. It is still at Toulouse. Other heads are in the 
church of Edna in Bergamo, in the cathedral at Genoa, in the 
Jesuit church at Naples, and at Andechs in Bavaria. Fragments 
of the same head are in Prague, Cremona, and Pavia. 

In England the feast of St. Barnabas is sometimes known as 
Barnabee's Day. It was usual in some churches to decorate the 
altars with garlands of flowers. In Hesket, an extensive parish 
of Cumberlandshire, England, the Court of Inglewood Forest is 
held annually on June 11 in the open air. The suitors assem- 
ble b}' the highway-side at a place marked only by an ancient 
thorn, where the annual dues to the lord of the Ibrest, composi- 
tions for improvements, etc., are paid ; and a jury for the whole 
jurisdiction is chosen from among the inhabitants of twenty 
mesne manors who attend on this spot. 

Barring Out. An obsolescent practice among British school- 
boys of excluding the school-master from the proper scene of 
his labors by barricading the doors and windows and holding 
the place in a state of siege until the master acceded to their 
demands. The time chosen was during the Christmas season in 
some places and at Shrove Tuesday in others. The understand- 
ing was that if the boys could keep their teacher on the outside 
of the academy door for the full term of three days, the deposed 
dignitary was bound by custom to enter into a capitulation with 
the youngsters, and to grant to them certain demands relating 
to the number of holidays for the ensuing year, to the allot- 
ment of the hours of study and recreation, and to other impor- 
tant points connected with the economy of the establishment. 
On the other hand, if the pupils failed in holding the school- 
house against their assailants for the period of three days, the 
master admittedly had a right to dictate his own terms in all 
those matters which have been mentioned. He obtained also 
the momentous right of castigating at will the actors in the 
rebellion, — a labor which they always took care to save him, 
in cases where they were successful, by making that point the 
subject of a very explicit condition in the act of capitulation. 
This document, it may be observed, was commonly drawn up in 



100 CURIOSITIES OF 

11 formal and most diplomatic style, securities for the fulfilment 
of all its stipulations being provided on both sides, and signa- 
tures affixed by the master and the scholars, or by plenipoten- 
tiaries appointed by the latter for the purpose. The " high 
contracting parties" were then at peace for the year. 

The grave and gentle Addison is said to have been the leader 
in a barring out during his school-days at Lichfield, circa 1684, 
and to have displayed a degree of disorderly daring scarcely in- 
teUigible in the future "parson in a tie-wig." 

Ditchfield reports that the custom still prevails in Cumber- 
land. " A few years ago," he says, " the Dalston School Board 
received a letter from the master, requesting that the school 
might close on the Thursday before Christmas instead of the 
Friday, on the ground that the ' old barbarous custom of barring 
out' the school-master might no longer be resorted to. If the 
school were opened on the Friday the master was of opinion 
that the children might possibly be persuaded by outsiders to 
make an attempt to bar him out, and would then have to suffer 
a large amount of severe castigation. The school accordingly 
closed on the Thursday, much to the regret of the chairman and 
others, who would like to have witnessed the repetition of so 
ancient a custom." 

Bartholomew, St., the Apostle, whose day is celebrated on 
August 24, is variously represented as the son of Prince Ptolo- 
maeus and of a simple husbandman. His name means " son of a 
drawer of water." Tradition says that on the dispersion of the 
apostles he travelled as far as India, entering pagan temples and 
imposing silence upon the oracles, curing the possessed and con- 
verting mighty princes. On his return through Armenia he was 
flayed alive and then crucified. His bones were dispersed by 
the heathen, but a monk, informed by a vision, gathered them 
together at night-time, when they shone like fire, and carried 
them to Benevento, where they still repose. Another legend 
asserts that the relics were transferred to Home. His attribute 
is a large knife, in addition to which he sometimes carries his 
own skin on his arm. At the abbey of Croyland, in Lincoln- 
shire, England, there used to be a distribution of knives to all 
comers on the saint's day. But the custom grew to be so 
financially onerous that it was abolished in the time of Edward 
IV. by Abbot John de Wisbech. In the parish of Dorrington 
in the same county the maidens would go in procession on St. 
Bartholomew's Day to a small chapel whose floor they strewed 
with rushes. Thence they proceeded to a piece of land called 
the Play-Garths, where they were joined by most of the inhab- 
itants of the place, and the remainder of the day was passed in 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 101 

rural sports. It was a custom in olden time for the scholars of 
various schools to meet upon this day and hold debates and dis- 
cussions. The practice remained long in vogue in Yorkshire, 
but has now disappeared. There was also held formerly, in 
London, a celebrated fair, which bore the name of Bartholo- 
mew, but it became so debased in its character that it was at 
last put down. 

A popular English distich alludes to the insetting of chilly 
evenings at about this period : 

St. Bartholomew 
Brings the cold dew. 

But, as .the feast happens just forty days after St. Swithin's, 
the good Bartholomew is looked upon as the deliverer from the 
quarantine of rain that is due if St. Swithin's be rainy : 

St. Bartlemy's mantle wipes dry 

All the tears that St Swithin can cry. 

Of course it often happens that after a showery August the 
rain clears off towards the end of the month preparatory to a 
sunshiny September. The verification of the proverb is eagerly 
looked for in still other phrases : "As Bartholomew's Day, so 
the whole autumn," and, again, 

If the 24th of August be fair and clear. 
Then hope for a prosperous autumn that year. 

The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, which has cast a bloody 
stain upon the feast, took place on the eve of St. Bartholomew 
in 1572. Charles IX. of France, Catherine de Medicis the 
queen mother, the Duke of Anjou, and the Guises, had deter- 
mined upon the extermination of the Huguenots. The slaugh- 
ter was to be indiscriminate ; the Princes of Conde and Navarre 
were the only Protestants to be spared. Charles, in a moment 
of compassion, endeavored to persuade the young Count de 
la Eochefoucault to remain that night in the Louvre, but with- 
out success. Everything had been arranged. Suddenly, deep 
in the night, a pistol was fired ; the tocsin of St.-Germain 
sounded the assault, and the Duke of Guise and his band of 
wretches rushed upon the defenceless Protestants. Guise made 
for the abode of the noble old Admiral Coligny, crying, '' To 
death ! to death !" but he did not dare to meet the admiral face 
to face. Breme, one of his German guards, ascended the stairs, 
and found a venerable old man engaged in his devotions. "Art 
thou Coligny ?" demanded the assassin. " I am," replied the 
admiral : " young man, respect my gray hairs." Breme thrust 



102 CURIOSITIES OF 

his sword through the helpless old man, crying to those below, 
"He is done for!" To satisfy the remorseless Guise, the body 
of the admiral was flung into the street. Thus perished Coligny, 
one of the noblest and purest men of that day. Over ten 
thousand Protestants are said to have been slain that night in 
Paris alone, five hundred of whom were men of rank. Great 
numbers also fell in the provinces. But Catholic historians con- 
tend that the number has been greatly exaggerated. 

Basil the Great, St. (328-380). The second in rank in the 
Greek Church, and the founder of the Basilicans, the only mo- 
nastic order known in that Church. His festival is celebrated in 
the Western Church on June 14, the day of his ordination, but 
in the Eastern on January 1, his death-day. He was a great 
preacher and a great theologian, but, fearing for his humility, 
retired to the desert as a hermit. In 370 he became Bishop of 
Caesarea. He disobeyed the orders of the Emperor Yalens to 
use the Arian rites. The Emperor threatened him even with 
death, but to no avail. Then Yalens determined to awe the 
prelate into submission. He came in great pomp with his court 
and soldiers to church on the feast of the Epiphany. But Basil 
would not notice him even when he came to the altar with his 
oblation. Yalens swooned and fell into the arms of an attendant. 
Baffled again and again, he finally suffered Basil to go his own 
way. Some of the relics of the saint are said to be preserved 
at Bruges, brought thither in 1187. 

Bathilda, St. (Fr. Bathilde, Baldochide, or Bauteur.) The 
wife of Clovis III., King of France, and after his death regent 
of the kingdom. Her festival is celebrated in France on Jan- 
uary 30, the anniversary of her death (about a.d. 680), but is 
named on the 26th in the Eoman Martyrology. She founded 
many churches and religious houses, especially the great abbey 
of Corbie in Picardy, and the church of the Holy Cross at 
Chelles, near Paris, where she is buried in a rich silver shrine. 
Le Boeuf in his "Histoire du Diocese de Paris" asserts that six 
nuns were cured of inveterate distempers, attended with fre- 
quent fits of convulsions, by touching the relics of St. Bathilde, 
when her shrine was opened on July 13, 1631. 

Bavo or Bavon, St. (589-653), patron of Ghent in Flanders, 
and of Haarlem in Holland. His festival is celebrated on the 
anniversary of his death, October 1. His name in the world 
was Allowin. He was a profligate nobleman, but the death of 
his wife and the preaching of St. Amandus converted him. The 
remainder of his life he spent in various cells and huts con- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 103 

structed by himself in the woods adjoining the monastery of St. 
Peter in Ghent. His conversion was followed by that of sixty 
of his fellow-nobles, who founded the church of St. Bavo at 
Ghent, where his relics remained until the church was torn 
down to give place to a citadel, when they were transferred to 
St. John's Church, which was re-named in his honor and is now 
the cathedral of Ghent. An arm of St. Bavo is kept in a silver 
case at Haarlem in the church which bears his name. 

Bee, Bees, or Bega, St. A saint whose name is commemo- 
rated in the abbey in Cumberland known by any one of these 
three names, and who appears in the Latin calendar on Septem- 
ber 6, probably her death-day. Legend asserts that she was the 
daughter of an Irish king who on the eve of her wedding to a 
son of the King of Norway escaped hj night to preserve her 
vows of virginity, and lived for many years in a cell which she 
built for herself near the site of the abbey. This was towards 
the close of the seventh century. She was celebrated during 
her lifetime for her austerity and charity, the latter leading her, 
during the building of her monastery, to prepare with her own 
hands the food of the masons and to wait upon them in their 
workshops, hastening from place to place like a bee laden with 
honey. She remained down to the Middle Ages the patroness 
of the laborious and often oppressed population of the district. 
A bracelet said to have been given to her by an angel was re- 
garded as a sacred relic, and petty tyrants against whom there 
was no other defence were made to swear upon it, in the belief 
that a perjury committed on so sacred a pledge could not pass 
unpunished. 

Bee Customs. A superstition which prevails in rural Eng- 
land and New England, and also in parts of Europe, is that bees 
will either fly away or die on the occasion of a death in the 
family unless some one knock at their hive and tell them of 
it. In some places the hives are further put into mourning, or, 
again, a bit of the funeral biscuit is offered to the bees. Whit- 
tier's poem " TelHng the Bees" is founded on this custom : 

Under the garden wall. 
Forward and back, 
Went drearily singing the chore-girl small, 
Draping each hive with a shred of black. 

* * * * * * * 

And the song she was singing ever since 

In my ear sounds on : 
" Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence I 

Mistress Mary is dead and gone !" 



104 CURIOSITIES OF 

In some places bees are formally invited to funerals. Another 
custom of the same sort is mentioned in this paragraph from the 
London Argus of September 13, 1790 : " A superstitious custom 
prevails at every funeral in Devon of turning round the bee- 
hives that belonged to the deceased, if he had any, and that at 
the moment the corpse is carried out of the house." 

At a funeral some time since, at Collumpton, in Devonshire, 
England, of a rich old farmer, just as the corpse was placed in the 
hearse, and the horsemen, to a large number, were drawn up 
in order for the procession of the funeral, a person called out, 
" Turn the bees !" when a servant, who had no knowledge of such 
a custom, instead of turning the hives round, lifted them up and 
then laid them down on their sides. The bees, thus hastily in- 
vaded, instantly attacked and fastened on the horses and their 
riders. It was in vain they galloped off: the bees as precipitately 
followed, and left their stings as marks of their indignation. A 
general confusion took place, attended with loss of hats, wigs, 
etc., and the corpse during the conflict was left unattended ; nor 
was it till after a considerable time that the funeral attendants 
could be rallied in order to proceed to the interment of their 
deceased friend. 

As good order is so strikingly exhibited in the government of 
the bees for the bees and by the bees, it seems not inappropriate 
that in Egyptian hieroglyphics the bee should represent royalty 
and that in later times it should have become the symbol of the 
French Empire. In France the royal mantle and standard were 
thickly sewn with golden bees, and in the tomb of Childeric 
in 1653 there were discovered three hundred bees made from 
the same precious metal. 

In Eoman Catholic days in England, and even occasionally in 
rural parishes in America, it used to be a custom to place in the 
centre of a hive of bees a small piece of the sacred wafer sur- 
reptitiously carried away from the communion. This was called 
the " little God Almighty," and was supposed to insure the bees 
from all harm and to increase their power of honey-making. 
The custom was denounced by the Church. Hawker, in his 
" Echoes from Old Cornwall," tells how the bees, to rebuke the 
irreverence of their owner, raised a shrine around the sacred 
bread, to show 

How holier hearts than his may beat 
Beneath the bold blasphemers feet. 

[A Legend of the Hive.) 

In England it is considered unlucky to buy or sell bees ; they 
must be given, and the donee in return makes a gift of a bushel 
of corn, a small pig, or other equivalent. Stolen bees will not 
thrive, but pine away and die by degrees. It is even unlucky 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 105 

for a swarm of bees to settle on strange premises, unless they 
are subsequently claimed by the owner. When bees die, or even 
when they remove or go away from their hives, there will be a 
death in the owner's family. 

In Virgil we find the story that Jupiter endowed the bee with 
its marvellous intelligence because when as an infant he lay con- 
cealed from his father's search in the Cretan cave bees fed him 
with honey. The Cretans themselves came to his aid by dancing 
around the babe and rattling brazen cymbals to drown the cries 
that might have betrayed him. To this latter legend is traced 
the still extant custom of pursuing swarms of bees with the 
clangor of keys on pans and kettles in order to induce them to 
settle down. Pliny argues that because this clatter is always 
made when bees swarm, therefore they must be gifted with the 
sense of hearing, which is rather curious logic. In " Tusser 
Eedivivus" (1744) is a paragraph with considerably more good 
sense : " The tinkling after them with a warming-pan, frying- 
pan, or kettle is of good use to let the neighbors know you have 
a swarm in the air, which you claim wherever it alights, but I 
believe of very little purpose to the reclaiming of the bees, who 
are thought to delight in no noise but their own." 

Bells. In the larger sense of the word, bells are of unknown 
antiquity. From the very earliest ages we hear of metal 
instruments that yielded musical notes when struck by metal 
wands or clappers, and the names of such instruments are usu- 
ally translated as bells. But it is doubtful, for example, whether 
the golden bells described in Exodus xxviii. 33-35 as part of 
the apparel of Aaron were anything but jangling ornaments of 
some sort worn by the high-priest. The same doubt hangs 
around the tintinnabulating Egyptian instruments which were 
used to announce the sacred feasts of Osiris, Nevertheless 
small bronze bells were found by Layard in the palace of Mm- 
roud in Nineveh. Bell-hke also in the modern sense were many 
of the percussion instruments that we find described by classical 
authors, from the tintinnabulum, and the petasus, or hat-shaped 
bell, which invited the ancient Greeks to the fish-market and 
the Romans to their public baths ; the codon, with which the 
Greek sentinels were kept awake, and which was the prototype 
of the signal which our bell-wether carries around its neck ; the 
nola, which was appended to the necks of pet dogs and the feet of 
pet birds : the campana, the first turret-bell ; the Dodoncei lebetes, 
or caldrons of Dodona, by means of which, according to Strabo, 
the oracles were sometimes conveyed ; down to the squilla, of 
which Hieronymus seems to have known nothing save that it 
was a smaller tintinnabulum. 



106 CURIOSITIES OF 

Large bells appear to have originated in China. Tradition 
asserts that popular justice bells were in use there in every large 
town long before the birth of Christ. These were fixed to the 
wall above the head of the prince or governor. A rope a mile 
or so in length was attached to each, and laid so temptingly 
along the main thoroughfare that the humblest sufferer from 
injustice seldom hesitated to tug at it. As soon as the bell 
sounded, the governor sent for the petitioner, and " serious busi- 
ness, craving quick despatch," met with instant and honest 
recognition. And even above the head of the Emperor himself 
there was such a noisy friend to the people, but he who rang it 
without sufficient cause — and His Celestial Majesty was often 
difficult to please in this particular — was switched in a very 
lively manner. 

Bells were unused by the early Christians. During the heathen 
persecutions it was of course impossible to call the faithful by 
any signal which would have attracted public notice. After 
Constantine's time, monastic communities used to signify the 
hour of prayer b}^ blowing a trumpet, or by rapping with a 
hammer at the cells of the monks. The invention of church- 
bells is often ascribed to Bishop Paulinus of Nola in Campania, 
who died in 431. From his native town and district came, it is 
urged, the Latin names for a bell, nola and campana, the latter 
still surviving in Italy. But more cautious historians think that 
it was only the facile etymologies which suggested the ascription 
of the invention to the bishop ; for in bis extant writings no 
mention of bells is made, and it is quite certain that the terms 
nola and campana are of a date anterior to the time of Paulinus. 

Whoever the inventor, church-bells had come into use in some 
parts of Europe before the seventh century. It was the bells 
of St. Stephen's Church in Sens whose clangor frightened away 
the besieging army of Clotaire II. in the year 610. Bede men- 
tions their existence in England in his day. It has been asserted 
that they were unknown to the Eastern Christians until the 
ninth century, when Duke Ursus of Yenice sent twelve great 
bells as a present to the Byzantine Emperor Michael, who erected 
a belfry for them at the church of St. Sophia. In the East, 
however, their general introduction was checked by the spread 
of Islam, the Mohammedans forbidding their use even to the 
Christians, partly from a kind of superstitious dread, and partly 
because they might be used as signals for revolt. 

In the Western Church, bells, like other church furniture, 
were solemnly consecrated before being taken into use. This 
custom still continues in Catholic countries. It is ecclesiastically 
known as "blessing the bell," though it is more popularly called 
" the baptism of the bell," a title by which the office is mentioned 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



107 



as early as the tenth century. The bishop washes the bell with 
holy water, signs it with the oil of the sick outside and with chrism 
inside, and lastly places it under the thurible with burning in- 
cense. He prays repeatedly that the sound of the bell may 
avail to summon the faithful, to excite their devotion, to drive 




Baptism of a Bell. 
(From Picart.) 



away storms, and to terrify evil spirits. Thus consecrated, bells 
become spiritual things, and cannot be rung without the consent 
of the ecclesiastical authorities. 

It is not only large bells to be hung in steeples, but also the 
smaller hand-bells rung at the elevation of the host (a practice 
introduced about the twelfth century) and in other churchly 
functions, which are thus baptized. 

This ceremony was prohibited in England at the time of the 
Eeformation, and was frequently burlesqued by a rabid No- 
Popery rabble, which would seize upon a new bell, turn it upside 
down, fill it with wine, and baptize it amid bacchanalian revels. 
In recent times, however, the bishops of Oxford, Salisbury, and 
other sees have set the example of dedicating the bells of their 
churches with a simple form of prayer. 

The church-bell had its civic as well as its religious uses. It 



108 CURIOSITIES OF 

summoned the soldiers to arms, it sounded the alarm in fire or 
tumult. Often the chief bell in the cathedral belonged not to 
the cathedral chapter, but to the town, and the rights of the 
burghers were jealously guarded against ecclesiastical encroach- 
ment. He who commanded the bell commanded the town, for 
at a moment's notice its sound could rally and concentrate his 
adherents. Hence a conqueror commonly acknowledged the 
political importance of bells by melting them down ; and the 
cannon of the conquered was in turn melted down to be used in 
the suppression of revolts. 

Other civil uses of bells may be briefly indicated. The curfew 
{q. V.) was rung at or about eight o'clock to command the ex- 
tinguishment of all lights. At Strasburg the Holy Ghost Bell, 
dating from 1375, is rung when two fires are seen in the town 
at once. The recall or storm bell warns travellers in the plain 
of storms coming from the Yosges Mountains. The Thor or 
gate bell, for closing and opening the gates of the city, has been 
cast three times (1618, 1641, and 1651). 

The inscriptions on old European bells are full of curious an- 
tiquarian interest. Most common of all is that which Schiller 
has used as the motto of his most famous lyric, " The Song of 
the Bell :" 

Vivos voco ; mortuos plango ; fulgura frango. 

(" I call the living ; I mourn the dead ; I break the lightning.") 

This is frequently expanded into the less epigrammatic form, — 

Laudo Deum verum, plebem voco, conjugo clerum ; 
Defunctos ploro, pestem fugo, festa decoro ; 
Funera plango, fulgura frango, Sabbata pango ; 
Excito centos, dissipo ventos, paco cruentos. 

(" I praise the true Grod, I summon the people, I assemble the clergj' ; 1 
mourn the dead, I put the plague to flight, I grace the feast ; I wail at the 
funeral, 1 abate the lightning, I proclaim the Sabbath; I arouse the indo- 
lent, I disperse the winds, I appease the revengeful.") 

Yery old and very common is the following : 

Gaudemus gaudentibus, 
Dolemus dolentibus. 

(" We rejoice with the joyous, we sorrow with the sorrowing.") 

And this : 

I to the church the living call, 
And to the grave do summon all. 

In many of the old spires of English churches are found 
painted or written, in old English script, " Laws of the Belfry." 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 109 

There is no more curious example extant than the following, 
dated 1627, which is found in St. John's Church, Chester: 

You ringers all observe these orders well, 

He forflets 12 pence who turns ore a bell : 

And he y^ ringes with either spur or hatt 

His 6 pence certainely shall pay for y*, 

And he that spoil or doth disturbe a peale 

Shall pay his 4 pence or a cann of ale ; 

And he that is hurde to curse or sweare 

Shall pay his 12 pence and forbeare. 

These customs elsewhere now are used 

Lest bells and ringers be abused. 

You gallants, then, y' on purpose come to ring 

See that you coyne alonge with j^ou doth bringe ; 

And further also if y* you ring here 

You must ring truly with hande and eare 

Or else your forfiets surely pay 

Full speedily, and that without delay. 

Our laws are old, yy are not new, 

The sextone looketh for his due. 

Avignon, the famous city in the south of France which during 
the period of the Papal expatriation from Eome — 1305-1377 — 
was the residence of seven successive Popes, has always been 
especially famous for its bells. It was the ville sonnante^ the 
"ringing city," of Eabelais. In its palmy days it had three 
hundred bells, which were always ringing the offices of the 
Church. Specially famous was the silver bell at the cathedral, 
which even after the return of the Papal court to Eome would 
ring out of its own volition to announce the accession or death 
of a Pope, in the latter case tolling without cessation for the 
space of twenty-four hours : 

Then pealed the note of a silver bell. 
And the great city her breath did draw 
Quick, and the gunners paused in awe, 
Waiting some portent ; for they know 
The silver bell sends never so 
From that high tower its single tone 
Save when a Pope ascends a throne, 
Or haply when Death calls for him. 

(Mistral: Calendau.) 

But such automatic action was necessarily rare, and for 
ordinary occasions the bells, like all others, required the services 
of bell-ringers, who became exceptionally proficient in their art. 
These men were famous also for the personal affection which 
they felt for their metal-tongued protegees, almost as if they 
were sentient beings. An old ringer of St. Agricol, for example, 
is said to have gone up to his bell to kiss it and bestow on it a 



110 cumosiTtBs OP 

thousand terms of endearment. And when once the bell of the 
White Penitents was temporarily interdicted, the peasant who 
was used to ringing it ascended the tower, and, leaning against 
his beloved bell, gave vent to his grief in sobbing and wailing, 
which, reverberated by the sonorous metal, was heard all over 
the city and far across the plain, and there he died, heart-broken, 
still clinging to his bell. 

The largest if not the most famous bell in the world is the 
"great bell of Moscow," or Czar Kolokol ("emperor of bells"). 
Its weight is about 440,000 pounds, and its cost in simple bell- 
material is estimated at about $300,000, to which, it is said, 
$1,000,000 was added in precious jewels, plate, etc., by the 
nobles at the time of casting. This bell is about twenty-one 
feet in height and twenty- two feet in diameter. It was cast by 
the Empress Anne in 1733 from the metal of a gigantic prede- 
cessor which had been greatly damaged. The beams which 
held it were destroyed by fire in 1734, and it fell and broke. 
Another story is that it was cracked in the furnace and was 
never hung at all. It remained in the earth until raised by the 
Emperor Nicholas in 1836. It is now consecrated as a chapel, 
and through the opening of the break two men can pass at the 
same time. 

There is another monstrous bell in the cathedral, weighing 
120,000 pounds. This is the largest in the world in actual use. 
It is rung three times a year, when all the other bells are silent. 
Its sound is like the roaring of distant thunder. In the same 
tower are several other bells, some weighing man}^ tons. 

The "great bell of China" in Pekin weighs 120,000 pounds, is 
fourteen feet in height and twelve feet in diameter. In Nankin 
there is a bell, now fallen to the ground, weighing 50,000 
pounds. 

A bell in Vienna weighs 40,000 pounds, and in Olmutz there 
is one of equal weight. A bell in Eouen, France, weighs 36,000 
pounds. The largest bell in England is the Westminster bell, 
" Big Ben," weighing 30,000 pounds. A bell of the like weight 
is in Erfurt, Germany. 

The largest bell on the American continent is at Montreal, in 
the cathedral, and weighs 25,000 pounds. One in Notre-Dame, 
Paris, also weighs 25,000 pounds. St. Peter's, at Eome, weighs 
17,500 pounds, and " Great Tom" at Oxford, England, weighs 
17,000 pounds. The "Jacqueline," of Paris, cast in 1400, weighs 
15,000 pounds, " Great Tom" at Lincoln, England, weighs 12,000 
pounds, and St. Paul's, of London, 11,500 pounds. 

The Independence Hall bell at Boston was cast in 1876 at 
the Meneely Foundry, and weighs 13,000 pounds. The famous 
"Liberty Bell," of Philadelphia, was cast in 1751. This is the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. Ill 

bell which in July, 1776, rang out the announcement of the 
adoption of the JDeclamtion of Independence. It was subse- 
quently broken when ringing a fire-alarm. It is now suspended 
b}' a chain of thirteen links from the ceiling in the hall of the 
State-House in Philadelphia. 

Bells were currently believed to calm storms, to avert light- 
ning, to disperse pestilences, to extinguish fires, to exorcise 
demons, and to drive away enemies. Among the superstitious 
uses recorded to have taken place in Old St. Paul's Church in 
London was the " ringinge the hallowed belle in great tempests 
or lightnings." 

Church-bells were and in some Catholic countries still are 
tolled for the dying, or those who are passing out of the world, 
Hence they were known as passing bells {q. v.). The custom 
of tolling bells slowly and solemnly after deaths and before 
funerals is still common in England. 

Of the varied uses in times past and present of small bells only 
a few can be chronicled here. The custom of hanging bells on 
the necks of horses and cattle, in use among the Eomans, still 
survives, especially in Switzerland. In Italy they are often made 
of baked earth ; these have a very sweet sound, and cost but a 
penny. The bells are useful in the dark, or when the animals 
that wear them have strayed out of sight. Hunting-hawks 
were formerly supplied with small bells to aid recovery. The 
attaching of small spherical bells or crotals to driving- and 
sleighing horses is common in many parts of Europe and 
America. The crotals so used are often identical with those 
found in British graves, which were suspended on the spears of 
warriors. The dustman's bell survives in some rural localities 
in England. So does the bell of the town crier, or bellman. 
The five-o'clock postman, with his hand-bell to collect letters, 
went out when the present postal system came in. On the other 
hand, the muffin-bell, the railway-bell, the dock-bell, the stage- 
bell, and the half- hour bells at sea, still survive. The hanging 
of bells in private houses, to be rung by means of wires from 
the different apartments, is a comparatively modern innovation, 
dating from the reign of George L, but even this is rapidly dis- 
appearing in favor of the electric bell system, where the push- 
ing of a small knob or button arouses a current of electricity that 
sets a small hammer in motion. Other new applications of the 
same principle are revolutionizing ancient methods everywhere. 
Nevertheless the whole of civilized life is still, as formerly, set to 
bell-music in one shape or another. 

Benares. The Holy City of India, and the Mecca of Hindoo 
pilgrims. It has been described as a labyrinth of lofty alleys, 



112 CURIOSITIES OF 

rich with shrines and minarets and balconies and carved oriels 
to which the sacred apes cling by hundreds. These apes have a 
temple specially devoted to them, but are allowed to roam the 
streets at will, together with the holy bulls. The traveller can 
hardly make his way through the press of holy mendicants and 
these not less holy animals. Broad and stately flights of steps, 
known as ghats, descend from these swarming haunts to the 
bathing-places along the Ganges, which are worn every day by 
an innumerable crowd of worshippers, who believe that they 
can expiate all the sins of the flesh by dipping their faces or 
their bodies into the filthy but sacrosanct waters. 

Every believer who can afford the expense brings his dying 
relatives to Benares, so that the soul may take its flight from 
the vantage ground of the Sacred City, which is held to be sixty 
thousand miles nearer heaven than any other locality on earth. 
Should the patient unexpectedly show signs of recovery, it is 
whispered that his mouth is filled with sacred mud and the end 
is hastened. He must not lose the opportune place and moment 
for a heavenward flight. Indeed, a dying person who has once 
been brought to the sacred banks of the Ganges can never be 
taken home alive; therefore it would be awkward, expensive, 
and inconvenient to allow him to defeat the obvious intentions 
of Providence. Yet sometimes filial love triumphs over all other 
considerations. Stories are occasionally told of devoted sons 
who, after bringing their sick mothers or fathers to Benares, 
have witnessed their recovery and have built little houses upon 
the banks of the river and settled therein, so that the convales- 
cents might await their end and die at their leisure. 

It is for the same reason of propinquity to heaven that Hin- 
doos come from all parts of India bearing the bodies of their 
dead to be cremated on the burning-ghats that line the Ganges. 
Each ghat has some fifteen or twenty hollow places scooped in 
the soil, each about six feet long and two feet wide. Here the 
funeral pyres are built of wood and straw. The bodies are 
placed upon them. The nearest relative lights the fire, and in 
two hours nothing is left but a heap of ashes, which are care- 
fully swept up and thrown into the Ganges. 

Poor people who cannot afford to burn their relatives light a 
little wisp of straw, blacken their faces with it, and, if possible, 
throw the bodies surreptitiously into the Ganges. This practice 
is now forbidden by law, and the sight of floating bodies on the 
sacred river is not so common as it used to be a dozen years 
ago. 

Hindoo theology teaches that after the body has been burned 
the parts are all mystically joined together in the spirit-world 
and must march through a river of mire and blood. A real 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 113 

material cow given to a Brahmin will, however, greatly expedite 
the journey. Next the soul comes to ground paved with fiery 
hot copper. A gift of shoes to the Brahmin will help the soul 
to pass over without blistering its poor feet. Next comes a road 
full of spikes, but a bed-spread presented to the same kind gen- 
tleman will olDviate any necessity for the spirit to sit upon these 
spikes. Here the Brahminic ingenuity fails, or perhaps the 
Brahminic avarice is satisfied, and the spirit is allowed to get 
along as best it can for the rest oi the journey. 

In Benares there are not iewer than from twenty to twenty- 
five thousand Brahmins, or high-caste Hindoos. They have 
control over the temples, the sacred wqIIs, streams, and reser- 
voirs, and other holy places about the city. They superintend 
the worship of the people, and give directions respecting the 
numberless ceremonies which are performed. Every sacred spot 
has some peculiarity connected with it ; and it is of great mo- 
ment that no punctilio should be omitted. They receive the 
oflPerings, the alms, the public dinners, and the good things which 
devout Hindoos are ever willing to bestow. Some of them are 
termed Sons of the Ganges, and are chiefly found on the banks 
of that stream, aiding the devotions of the numerous worship- 
pers daily resorting thither. 

Devotees and pilgrims, separated or in crowds, enter or depart 
from the city constantly throughout the year, especially on occa- 
sions of great festivals. They come from all parts of India. 
Many carry with them the sacred water of the Ganges in small 
bottles hermetically sealed, placed in baskets hanging from the 
extremities of poles which they bear upon their shoulders. (See 
Pradakshina.) 

Benedict, St. (Fr. Benoit ; It. Benedetto ; Sp. Benito), founder, 
patriarch, and first abbot of the order of Benedictines. Born at 
Norcia, in Spoleto, in 480, he died at Monie Casino, March 21, 
543, and is commemorated on his death-day. He became a 
hermit at fifteen at Subiaco, then a wilderness. But he was 
greatly tempted by memories of his student life in Eome, espe- 
cially of a beautiful woman he had seen there, insomuch that he 
flung himself into a thicket of briers, wherein he rolled himself 
until he was torn and bleeding. At the monastery of Subiaco 
to this day roses said to have been propagated from these briers 
are shown. The fame of his sanctity brought many other her- 
mits around him, who lived in huts and caves, until at length 
Benedict, for the sake of order, commanded them to build twelve 
monasteries. In each he placed twelve monks. Later he with- 
drew to Monte Casino, where he founded the monastery which 
has always been regarded as the parent of all others of the 

8 



114 CURIOSITIES OF 

Benedictine order. Here he promulgated the rules of that 
order. He was at last seized with fever, and ordered his grave 
to be dug ; after standing on the edge of it in silent contempla- 
tion, he was borne by his disciples to the altar of the church, 
and after receiving the last sacrament there died. 

Bernard of Clairvaux, St. (1091-1153), founder of the 
abbey of Clairvaux in France, and one of the Fathers of the 
Church. He is commemorated on August 20, his death-day. He 
preached the second Crusade, was the adversary of Abelard and 
of Arnold of Brescia, and a great authority in law as in religion. 
Owing to his special championship of the Yirgin Mary, she is 
reported to have visited him twice : once when, ill and unable 
to write, she restored him by her presence ; and again when she 
moistened his lips with the milk from her bosom and made his 
eloquence irresistible. His attributes are the demon fettered 
behind him, three mitres at his feet, as emblems of three bish- 
oprics which he refused, and the beehive, as a symbol of elo- 
quence. He was buried before Our Lady's altar in Clairvaux, 
and numerous miracles performed at his shrine caused Alex- 
ander III. to canonize him in 1165. 

Bernard of Menthon, St. (923-1008). The founder of the 
hospitals for travellers across the Alpine passes known as " The 
Great St. Bernard" and "The Little St. Bernard," where some 
of the regular canons of St. Augustine have for nine centuries 
ministered charity and offered guidance to distressed travellers 
lost in the snows. He is commemorated in the calendar on June 
15, the day of his burial. He was Archdeacon of Aosta, and 
i'or forty years was engaged on missions among the mountaineers. 
His observations of the hardships which Alpine travellers had 
to undergo suggested to him the idea of erecting places of refuge 
for them"^. He died at Novara on May 28, 1008 

A clever woman traveller has recorded in the Wew York Tribune 
lier impressions of the Hospice St. Bernard as it now appears: 

"One of the joys of my childhood was to contemplate with 
wide-open eyes, night and morning, as I lay tucked up in my 
little cot, an etching which hung above it, and which represented 
the rescue of two unfortunate travellers half buried in eternal 
snows, by a couple of magnificent, huge St. Bernard dogs. My 
young imagination conjured up mountain disasters ceaselessly, 
and then I took a solemn resolution to become, when I grew 
older, a distinguished Alpine climber. Life decided otherwise 
for me, and, although I have always retained my love for the 
mountains and have spent many summers in the Tyrol, the Alps, 
the Pyrenees, etc., my celebrity as a professional mountaineer is 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 115 

yet to be born. Nevertheless, some time ago, returning from 
Italy to Austria via Switzerland, I decided to go and investigate 
for myself whether my childhood's admiration, the great St. 
Bernard dog, was truly as majestic as he is painted when seen 
in his native haunts and exercising his charitable and heroic 
mission. 

"The winter w^as almost over, but still the ascent of the snow- 
covered giant was by no means an easy task. The Mont St. 
Bernard is anything but easily accessible, but still, thanks to the 
adroitness of the guides, we at last reached the refuge of 'la 
Cantine de Proz,' a spot from which one can plainly see the 
ancient monastery, looking grim and forbidding in its shroud of 
snow and ice. 1 gazed with delight upon this scene, and so 
great was my eagerness to reach the goal of my ambitions that 
I urged my guides to proceed wnthout delay. Much to my 
astonishment, and also, I confess, to my utter disgust, they ex- 
plained to me, in that hideous mixture of patois, vile French, and 
viler German, which is the idiom of Wilhelm Tell's fatherland, 
that they had just telephoned to the abbot there yonder, in 
order to obtain further reinforcements before attempting to cross 
the last 'col' or pass, a peculiarly dangerous one. 

" Telephone ! My amazement was so great that I stared help- 
lessly and silently at my companions. Could I have misunder- 
stood their vernacular? Telephone, from the pure, unsullied, 
frozen summits of this proud peak ! But no, I had not mis- 
taken the import of their words, for here behind me I suddenly 
heard the familiar and exasperating tinkling of the telephone 
bell, followed by the yet more exasperating 'Hullo! Hullo!' 
which one finds acclimatized from Benares to Yokohama, San 
Francisco, Melbourne, Teheran, or wherever else the invention 
has penetrated. I may call the impression which I then received 
my first disappointment, one, by the bye, which was speedily 
capped by several more. Resigned for the time being, I sat 
down on a bench before the glowing stove to await the coming 
of the good monks' forces, and, after a space of time which 
seemed long, a small procession of brown-robed figures, headed 
by three or four enormous dogs, appeared in view. Little at- 
tention did I grant to the saintly men, but the dogs! — the sweet- 
tempered, noble, kind-hearted dogs! I literally flung myself 
out of the door to meet them, and, with that impulsiveness 
which has already cost me so many needless troubles, I flung 
my arms about the neck of the first one I reached. There was 
a low, vicious growl, a snap of the mighty jaws, a contemptuous 
toss of the massive head, and had it not been for the timely 
interference of a portly monk I should not only have stood there 
unmercifully reproved but also cruelly bitten. So much for the 



116 CURIOSITIES OF 

kind-heartedness of the great St. Bernard breed, for, as my 
rescuer explained to me in melodious Italian, the animals realize 
that they are required only to save the lives of those perishing 
in the snow, and that when they have done this occasionally 
they do not see the need of showing any further amiability 
toward the human race. He added mournfully that, anyhow, 
the dogs are degenerating, and that they are very reluctant to 
go out on their life-saving expeditions, quite unlike their sires, 
for they were all fire and flame for the good cause. Disappoint- 
ment number two having thus been inflicted upon me, I resumed 
my voyage a wiser if a sadder woman. 

" The road was arduous, snow was falling, and the wind howled 
piteously over the vast frozen slopes; moreover, I was so tired 
that I felt like lying down in the snow and pretending to be on 
the point of death in. order to test the one remaining virtue of 
the dogs who bounded in front of us. The sample which I had 
had of their sweetness of behavior, however, encouraged me so 
little to throw myself on their tender mercies that I reconsidered 
my plan and faced the icy wind with renewed energy. 

" I was expected, in spite of the lateness of the hour, and the 
reception I met with touched me much. All that warmth, hot 
wine, palatable food, and a grateful shelter from the outer blasts 
of the weather could do for me was accomplished, and that in so 
simple and charming a way that my heart was immediately won. 
There, at least, was no disappointment ; the great granite hearth 
whereon crackled and blazed enormous pine logs, the white- 
bearded abbot who ministered in so kindly a way to my wants, 
the solemn hush overspreading the entire rambling pile of build- 
ing, interrupted alone by an intermittent burst of chanting which 
was wafted toward us as the inside door of the neighboring 
chapel opened and closed, were all as I had pictured them to be. 

" The St. Bernard monks belong to the Augustinian order, 
but do not resemble those of their brothers who live in the 
plains. Amiable, learned, devoid of all intolerance, they remind 
one, with their serious, weather-beaten countenances, of sailors 
used to braving the elements and being ever on the alert for 
some catastrophe of nature. A great peace surrounded us in 
our mountain fastness, and a right pleasant evening did we 
spend, the venerable abbot teUing me all about the monastery 
which he loves so well. I learned that since the year 960, when 
St. Bernard had founded this place of refuge for those lost in 
the snow and ice of this, one of the most dangerous portions of 
the European Alps, a record had been kept by the worthy monks 
of all the lives saved. At the end of the sixteenth century this 
record was transcribed in Latin on the parchment pages of some 
old missal-like volumes, which are of the greatest interest, and to 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 117 

this day the practice is faithfully kept up. Eather gruesome is 
it to find that the corpses of the victims who have succumbed 
in precipices, crevices, or avalanches, or from mere exhaustion 
and snow-sickness, have been preserved, not under-ground, for 
there is hardly any earth on the rocks of St. Bernard, but in 
two caves, one being now reserved for Catholics, while the other, 
as the abbot said, is tenanted by Protestants and other infidels. 

" The next morning I was taken to see this mortuary ice- 
house, which contains the stiff'ened corpses of many of Napoleon's 
brave soldiers, gaunt grenadiers, even now half covered by the 
snow which caused their death during the dreadful crossing of 
the Alps in the train of Europe's greatest general. The sight is 
not a pretty one, and for many a night I dreamed of the row of 
rigid corpses I had gazed upon there. 

" Far more to my taste was the museum contained in one 
wing of the monastery. This museum is filled with the relics 
discovered in the ruins of the temple of Jupiter, which once 
stood on the edge of the tiny lake stretching its sheet of ice a 
hundred yards from the portals of the holy edifice devoted to the 
rescue of Christian souls and bodies. The ancient Romans cer- 
tainly built this temple to meet the same purpose as did St. 
Bernard the monastery bearing his name. It was used as a 
refuge for travelling soldiers, and the excavations undertaken by 
the Italian government brought to light a considerable amount 
of riches, including two thousand five hundred pieces of gold 
and silver, dating back as far as Julius Csesar, some magnificently 
jewelled ex votos, and a statue of Jupiter which is a marvel of 
sculpture. 

" Filled with enthusiasm at what I had seen, I was stepping 
back toward the refectory of the monks, where breakfast was 
awaiting us, when I was startled by a sharp, clicking sound. 
Peering out of the gloom which filled the narrow stone passage 
I was traversing, I caught sight of a rubicund monk, who, in a 
small cell-like room, was seated before a typewriter, rattling 
away for dear life ! 

" ' Enough ! Enough !' I almost cried, as 1 fled toward the 
main hall. Julius Caesar, Roman coins, frozen corpses, kindly 
abbot, vicious dogs, telephone, and typewriters, made up a mis- 
cellaneous jumble in my head which threatened to turn me crazy. 
'Oh, dear!' thought I, after having bidden my adieus to the 
entire congregation and deposited my offerings in the alms-box 
of the chapel, — the only remuneration one is permitted to give 
for all one has received at the hands of the Augustinian monks, 
— ' is there not one corner left in this wretched world of ours 
where one can forget for once that one is unfortunate enough to 
live at the latter end of the nineteenth century, and must one 



118 CURIOSITIES OF 

be pursued to the very topmost peaks of the Alps by all the 
modern improvements ?' " 

Bible Orchard. A piece of land in the parish of St. Ives, 
Hants, England, which has a curious history. Dr. Eobert Wilde, 
who died in August, 1678, bequeathed fifty pounds, the yearly 
interest of which was to be expended in the purchase of six 
Bibles, not exceeding the price of seven shillings and sixpence 
each, which should be "cast for by dice" on the communion- 
table in the church of St. Ives on the last Thursday in May by 
six boys and six girls of the town. Hence the day is locally 
known as Bible Thursday. The capital sum was invested in 
what is now known as Bible Orchard. The legacy also provided 
for the payment of ten shillings yearly to the vicar for preach- 
ing a sermon on the occasion " commending the excellency, the 
perfection, and divine authority of the Holy Scriptures." This 
singular custom has been observed every year, with the excep- 
tion that the dice-throwing now takes place on a table erected 
at the chancel steps, the bishop of the diocese having decided in 
1880 that the communion-table was not the proper place for a 
raffle. 

Biddenden Cakes. In the parish of Biddenden, Kent, Eng- 
land, there still exists an endowment of unknown date. On 
Easter Sunday some six hundred so-called Biddenden cakes are 
distributed among parishioners who attended the afternoon ser- 
vices at the church, and in addition some three hundred loaves 
of bread, each of three and a half pounds weight, and each ac- 
companied by a pound and a half of cheese. The endowment 
is charged upon an estate known as the Bread and Cheese lands, 
which, according to the best authorities, were some centuries 
ago left to the parish for this purpose by two maiden ladies of 
the name of Preston. The Biddenden cakes are impressed with 
the figures of two females standing closely side by side in such 
fashion that they appear to be bound together like the Siamese 
Twins. On this hint tradition has founded a curious and cir- 
cumstantial story. It has rebaptized the ladies under the names 
of Mary and Elizabeth Chalkhurst, and asserts that they were 
in fact joined by a ligature at birth and lived just thirty years, 
when the death of one was followed in a few hours by the death 
of the other. The whole storj^ is minutely told in a sort of 
hand-bill still printed and sold on the spot, entitled "A Short but 
Concise Account of Elizabeth and Mary Chalkhurst." It may 
be mentioned in passing that a similar story is related of two 
females whose figures appear in the pavement of J^orton St. 
Philip Church in Somersetshire. Hasted in his " History of 



POPULAR CUSTOMS 119 

Kent" (1798) has examined the Biddenden myth, and decides 
that it arose simply from the rude impression on the cakes, which 
had been printed in this manner only within the preceding fifty 
years. 

Birthday. The celebration of the anniversary of an indi- 
vidual's birth, though customary among the ancients, was origi- 
nally frowned upon by the Christians. Nor was this to be 
wondered at. To the early followers of Christ the world was a 
hard and cruel one. They were oppressed and persecuted and 
martyred alike by Jews and by pagans. It was no benefit to 
them to be born. Death was the true deliverance. To die was 
to pass from a life of sorrow and humiliation into endless glory. 
Moreover, birth was in its very essence a degradation, inasmuch 
as it implied an assumption of that heritage of original sin 
which Adam has bequeathed to all his descendants. Thus, 
Origen, in a homily on Leviticus xii. 2, assures his hearers that 
"none of the saints can be found who ever held a feast or a 
bktiquet upon his birthday, or rejoiced on the day when his son 
or his daughter was born. But sinners rejoice and make merry 
on such days. For we find in the Old Testament that Pharaoh, 
King of Egypt, celebrated his birthday with a feast, and that 
Herod, in the New Testament, did the same. But the saints not 
only neglect to mark the day of their birth with festivity, but 
also, filled with the Holy Ghost, the}- curse this day, after the 
example of Job and Jeremiah and David." 

It was not the birthdays but the death-days of the saints that 
were made the occasions of the Church festivals in their honor. 
Nevertheless the term birthday was applied by the early Church 
to these festivals. "When you hear of a birthday of saints, 
brethren," says Peter Chrysologus, "do not think that that is 
spoken of in which they are born of earth, in the fiesh, but that 
in which they are born from earth into heaven, from labor to 
rest, from temptations to repose, from torments to delights not 
fluctuating, but strong and stable and eternal, from the derision 
of the world to a crown of glory. Such are the birthdays of 
the martyrs that we celebrate." 

While such was the temper of the leading teachers in the 
Church, it is only natural that the Christians thought little even 
of the immaculate birth of Christ or the equally immaculate 
birth of the Virgin Mary. Indeed, it was not till the fourth and 
ninth centuries respectively that even the dates of these events 
were agreed upon. Not that this was the universal and un- 
broken condition of thought and feeling in the Church during 
the first three centuries. " There were some men in advance of 
their age," says the Eev. Henry J. Yandyke in Harper's Maga- 



120 CURIOSITIES OF 

zine for December, 1885, " who had learned to think of the whole 
life of Christ in its unity as a life for and wiih man, crowned by 
His vicarious death and resurrection. Irenaeus in particular is 
worthy of special mention and enduring honor as the first of the 
Fathers to bring out the unfolding of all the stages of human 
Hfe in Jesus Christ; and, even though he had never written 
another word than this, he deserves to be immortal in the mem- 
ory of the Church for having said, ' The Son of God became a 
child among the children in order that childhood might be made 
holy.'* 

"This sentence holds the heart of Christmas. But it was not 
until long after it was uttered, it was not until the latter half of 
the fourth century, that the Church at large began to feel and 
to unfold its meaning. Then it was that she emerged from the 
storm of persecution into the sunshine of imperial favor. Then 
she saw that she had a work to do here on earth in the cleans- 
ing and adorning of human life with the beauty of holiness. 
Then she realized that patient suffering and faithful death were 
not the only duties of the Christian, but that, following God in 
love, it was possible to begin in this world the purity and peace 
of heaven. Then she began to feel the wondrous significance of 
the Hving entrance of the Son of God into the hfe of man, and His 
perfect pattern of holiness in every human relation. Then she 
passed from the lower conception of a church saved out of the 
world, to the higher conception of a world to be saved through 
the ministry of the church, a natural year to be transformed by 
reverent devotion and wholesome piety into the Christian year, 
a redeeming life as well as an atoning death of Christ, to be 
preserved in living remembrance by the perpetual commemora- 
tion of its chief events. Then it was that, opening her heart 
to the humanity of religion, she began to draw near to the 
humanity of Jesus, and to seek with eager interest for the day 
of His birth, that she might make it holy." 

With the celebration of Christ's Nativity returned the celebra- 
tion of the nativities of ordinary mortals. 

Black- Letter Days. Minor holidays and saints' days whose 
names appear in black instead of red letters in the calendar. 
(See Red-Letter Days.) In the English (reformed) calendar the 
black-letter days were retained in some cases because the person 
commemorated was a public benefactor or a national hero, in 

* Compare Ruskin : " From the moment when the spirit of Christianity had 
been entirely interpreted to the Western races, the sanctity of womanhood 
worshipped in the Madonna, and the sanctity of childhood in union with that 
of Christ, became the light of every honest hearth and the joy of every pure 
and chastened soul." 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 121 

others because the day marked some civil date of importance. A 
few have entered into the common speech of England, as Hilary 
term, Martinmas summer, etc. 

Black Monday. In English history this title is given specifi- 
cally to Easter Monday, the 14th of April, 1360, on which day 
Edward III. " with his hoast lay before the Citty of Paris, which 
day was full darke of mist and haile and so bitter cold that many 
men dyed on their horses with cold ; wherefore unto this day it 
hath beene called the Blacke Munday." (Stow's Annals, p. 264.) 
By extension the term was also applied to every Easter Monday. 
It is used in this sense by Shakespeare : " Then it was not for 
nothing that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last." 
(Merchant of Venice, ii. 5, 25.) But at present Black Monday is 
generally understood in England in its application to the first 
Monday after the long vacation, when school-boys return to 
their studies. The term was appropriate enough in those earlier 
unhappy times when learning was considered a thing that could 
be whacked in from above or spanked in from below, and only 
scant attention was paid to the creature comforts of the victims. 
These times are rather pleasantly recalled in an article on 
" Black Monday" contributed to Dickens's Household Words, 
vol. vi. p. 569 (1853). A few paragraphs may be quoted : 

" Cases do now, I believe, frequently occur in which the pains 
of school are more than counterbalanced by its pleasures ; in 
such cases degenerate boys fly in the face of the poet, and go 
willingly to school, abolishing the due observance of the ancient 
institution of Black Monday. I am for due observance of all 
fasts and festivals, and feel quite sure that there is no better 
reason why Gunpowder Treason should be celebrated than why 
Black Monday should never be forgot. 

" There may be many who keep the day dull now, I don't deny 
that I believe there are many ; but in my younger days the 
proper celebration of it was a rule absolute, and there were no 
exceptions. The eve of Black Monday used to be kept on Sat- 
urday, when the school-box was packed. We then used to get 
out our books with solemn faces. They were not done with yet, 
we felt ; ere long they would give plague to us, and the first day 
of plague would be the day most fitly called, on the same prin- 
ciple that gave a title to the Black Assizes, Black Monday. 

" Another penance undergone by school-boys of the last gen- 
eration, that ought not to be shirked by boys in this, was the 
great washing of feet and heads upon Black Monday Eve, the 
Saturday night previous. Sunday intervened always as a day 
of quiet rest. We were to go so clean to school that our legs 
on that last Saturday night were parboiled, and our heads were 



122 CURIOSITIES OF 

scrubbed so that the skin felt to be coming off about our ears. 
This penance was the more acutely felt as we knew well that 
when we got to school on Black Monday evening our heads 
would be again raked severely with a small-toothed comb. On 
the Sunday before Black Monday was the Feast of Uncles, when 
we would take care to go and say good-by to any relative who had 
not paid his nephew's tax for the half-year then to commence. 
Before getting into bed on Sunday night, we alw^ays counted up 
our shillings and half-crowns, and put the money into a big 
purse made by a little sweetheart with blue eyes and fairy feet, 
then put the purse into a pocket of the new and strong school 
trousers that lay, neatly folded by a mother's hand, ready for 
wear next morning, on a chair by the bedside. Then we got into 
bed, and lay awake so long that we caught the mother's face 
over our own attempting a sly kiss at the grown people's bed- 
time ; then we fell asleep. We dressed next morning, hurriedly 
roused by candlelight, in frost and cold, were made to swallow 
eggs and toast and ham and boiling coffee, and rolled off in a 
hackney-coach through dark and snowy streets to the Swan with 
Two Necks, Lad Lane. From that place we were booked — or 
I was booked, for it will be seen that I have slipped insensibly 
from generalities into a recollection of my individual experience 
— from that place I was booked outside to Millstone." 

But with the descent from the general to the particular the 
article loses its value for the purposes of this compilation. 

Black Rod. The name given to the official who carries mes- 
sages from royalty to the Houses of Parliament. He presents 
a picturesque appearance in his black tunic lavishly slashed 
with gold embroidery, knee-breeches, silk stockings, and silver- 
buckled shoes ; but neither the sword that dangles by his side 
nor the short eponymic rod of black ivory with gold knob which 
he carries in his right hand throws about him a sufficiently aggres- 
sive dignity to explain the time-honored reception which always 
greets him in the House of Commons. As he walks along the 
lobby that lies between the chamber of the Lords and the cham- 
ber of the Commons, his approach is heralded by an iron-throated 
usher shouting, "Black Eod! Way for Black Eod!" But the 
moment that stentorian cry reaches the ears of the sergeant-at- 
arms in the House of Commons he springs from his chair, close 
to the main entrance to the chamber, and, rushing to the open 
door behind him, closes it with a most inhospitable bang, right 
in the face of Black Eod, and securely locks and bolts it. The 
sergeant-at-arms then peers out into the lobby through a grated 
peep-hole, with a wooden slot, fixed in the stout oak door. Pres- 
ently three faint knocks are heard at the door. They are ad. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 123 

ministered by Black Eod. The petitionary appeal of this soft, 
humble " rat-a-tat-tat" no one could resist ; and so, at a nod from 
the Speaker, the doors are flung open by the sergeant-at-arms, 
and in walks the royal messenger. 

Blaise, St. (Lat. Blasius ; It. Biagio)^ patron of Eagusa, also 
of wool-combers and against diseases of the throat. The Eoman 
Church celebrates his martyrdom on February 3, the Greek on 
February 11. He was Bishop of Sebaste, in Cappadocia, but 
spent most of his time in retirement on a hill not far from the 
city, where wild beasts used to come for his blessing. During the 
persecution of the Christians under Licinius he was seized and 
taken before the governor. On the way a woman besought the 
saint to relieve her child, who was choking from a bone in its 
throat. He laid his hand on the child's throat and prayed, and 
it was healed. Alter being tortured by having his flesh torn 
with wool-combers' irons, St. Blaise was beheaded (a.d. 316). 

In England the saint was specially popular before the Eefor- 
mation. The Council of Oxford, a.d. 1222, prohibited servile 
labor on his feast. Its observance in England was marked by 
curious ceremonies. Among others, a taper used to be offered at 
high mass; and it was until lately the custom in many parts 
of England to light bonfires on the hills on St. Blaise's Night. 
These usages are sometimes referred to a pun on his name 
(Blaise = blaze) ; but this seems erroneous, as they are not pecu- 
liar to England. In some parts of Germany St. Blaise's Day is 
known as Little Candlemas Day, from the bonfires that it was 
usual to kindle on that night, or perhaps from the candles offered 
in the churches. Googe's translation of " The Popish Kingdom" 
has these lines : 

Then followeth good Sir Blaze, who doth a waxen candell give, 
And holy water to his men, whereby tliey safely live. 
I divers barrels oft have seene, drawne out of water cleare, 
Through one small blessed bone of this same Martyr heare, 
And caryed thence to other townes and cities farre away, 
Ech superstition doth require such earnest kinde of play. 

Minsheu, in his Dictionary, under the word " Hocke-tide," 
speaks of " St. Blaze his day, about Candlemasse, when countrj^ 
women goe about and make good cheere, and if they finde any 
of their neighbour women a spinning that day, they burne and 
make a blaze of fire of the distaffe, and thereof called S. Blaze 
his day." 

Which shows that a bad pun has immortal life. 

Both in Germany and in the United States special services 
are held in the Catholic churches on St. Blaise's Day, when the 



124 CURIOSITIES OF 

throats of people suffering from bronchial or pulmonary troubles 
are blessed. Candles are frequently brought to church by the 
patients, which after receiving the priestly benediction are sup- 
posed to have certain sanctifying and hygienic qualities. 

Eeginald Scot, in his " Discovery of Witchcraft," ed. 1665, p. 
137, gives us a charm used in the Eoman Church upon St. Blaise's 
Day, that v^ill fetch a thorn out of any place of one's body, a 
bone out of the throat, etc., to wit, " Call upon God, and remem- 
ber St. Blaise." An ancient receipt " for a stoppage in the 
throat" was the following: "Hold the diseased party by the 
throat, and pronounce these words, Blaise, the martyr and ser- 
vant of Jesus Christ, commands thee to pass up and down." 

In England the wool-combers still acknowledge St. Blaise as 
their patron. The flourishing communities engaged in this busi- 
ness in Bradford and other English towns are accustomed to hold 
a jubilee on the 3d of February every seventh year in honor of 
Jason of the Golden Fleece and St. Blaise. At one time the 
festival was conducted with immense state and ceremony. The 
following was the order of the singular procession on this day : 
The masters on horseback, with each a white sliver ; the mas- 
ters' sons on horseback ; their colors ; the apprentices on horse- 
back, in their uniforms; music ; mummers representing the king 
and queen, the royal family, their guards and attendants ; Jason 
and the golden fleece ; attendants ; Bishop Blaise and his chap- 
lain ; their attendants ; shepherd and shepherdess ; shepherd's 
swains, attendants, etc. ; foremen and wool-sorters on horseback ; 
combers' colors; wool-combers, two and two, with ornamented 
caps, wool wigs, and various colored slivers. See a further ac- 
count in Hone's " Every Day Book," i. 210. 

In Greek art St. Blaise is painted as an old man with a pointed 
beard. In the West he appears in the vestments of a bishop, 
with an iron comb of the sort used by wool-combers. 

Blarney Stone. A famous piece of rock in Blarney Castle, 
near Cork, Ireland. Father Prout calls it the palladium of Ire- 
land, and humorously sums up the various legends concerning it, 
— namely, that it was brought over by the Phoenician colony said 
to have peopled the island ; that the Syrians and Carthagin- 
ians, long its custodians, gave rise to the expression Punica fides 
Syriosque hilingues from their labial devotion to the stone. He 
adds that some Carthaginian adventurers, enamored of the relic, 
stole it and carried it off to Minorca, and afterwards, driven by a 
storm into Cork harbor, deposited it near the present spot. 

Everybody knows that to kiss the Blarney Stone is to secure a 
fluent, flattering, but not over-sincere tongue. 

Every Irishman south of the Liffey is popularly supposed to 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 125 

have enjoyed the renowned osculation, and, moreover, to have 
tasen a dip in the Shannon, that makes perfect the quality of 
impudence, or, as the natives euphemistically express it, civil 
courage. The origin of the superstition about the stone is told 
in numberless traditions. Crofton Croker states — and this is the 
most plausible of all the stories — that in 1602, when the Span- 
iards were urging the Irish chieftains to harass the English, one 
Cormach M'Dermod Carthy, who held the castle, had concluded 
an armistice with the Lord President on condition of surrender- 
ing it to an English garrison. Carthy put off his lordship day 
after day with fair promises and false pretexts, until the latter 
became the laughing-stock of Elizabeth's ministers, and the 
former's honeyed and delusive speeches were stamped w^ith the 
title of Blarney. 

The custodians of the castle all seem to have taken advantage 
of the properties of the stone confided to their care. It is a 
well-known trick of theirs to regulate their choice of the par- 
ticular stone which shall for the nonce be passed off upon the 
traveller, according to the latter's willingness and capacity to 
climb. If he is old or feeble, they will inform him that the stone 
has been knocked down by some indacent blayguard, and now 
lies near the front door. But if he is young, vigorous, and alert, 
they will tell him the truth, that it is situated at the northern 
angle of the massive donjon, about one hundred and twenty-five 
feet from the ground, and that to reach it with one's lips requires 
that one should be held over the parapet by one's heels. The 
stone bears the inscription, now very dim, " Cormach MacCarthy 
fortis me fieri facit, a.d. 1446." 

Blood and Blood Vengeance. In the forms of civilization 
that preceded our own, and in some existing modern races of 
lower type, there appear traces of a sense of wrong attaching to 
any form of bloodshed whatever, whether of fair battle or of 
base treachery, and calling for the purifying influences of expia- 
tion and cleansing. In South Africa, for instance, the Basuto 
returning from war proceeds with all his arms to the nearest 
stream, to purify not only his own person but his javelins and his 
battle-axe. The Zulu, too, practises ablutions on the same occa- 
sion, and the Bechuana warrior wears a rude kind of necklace, 
to remind him of the expiation due from him to the slain and 
to disperse the dreams that might otherwise trouble him and 
perhaps even drive him to die of remorse. The same feelings 
may be detected in ancient times. The Macedonians had a 
peculiar form of sacrificatory purification, which consisted in 
cutting a dog in half and leading the whole army, arrayed in 
full armor, between the two parts. As the Boeotians had the 



126 CURIOSITIES OF 

same custom, it was probably for the same reason. At Eome, 
for the same purpose, a sheep, a bull, and a pig or a boar were 
every year led three times round the army and then sacrificed to 
Mars. In Jewish history the prohibition to King David to build 
the temple was expressly connected with the blood he had shed 
in battle. In old Greek mythology Theseus held himself unfit, 
without expiation, to be admitted to the mysteries of Ceres, 
though the blood that stained his hands was only that of thieves 
and robbers. And in the same spirit Hector refused to make a 
libation to the gods before he had purified his hands after battle. 
" With unwashen hands," he said, " to pour out sparkling wine to 
Zeus I dare not, nor is it ever the custom for one soiled with the 
blood and dust of battle to offer prayers to the god whose seat 
is in the clouds." 

Blood- Covenant. A rite by which two persons absorb each 
the other's blood, either by drinking or by transfusion to the 
veins, whereby they become bound to each other in even a closer 
connection than that of brotherhood. It prevails in many coun- 
tries, civilized and uncivilized, and may be traced back to extreme 
antiquity. It existed in the rites and literature of the ancient 
Egyptians, and is frequently alluded to in the Bible. Dr. H. 
Clay Trumbull, who has made a scientific examination of the 
subject, holds that its origin is in the universally dominative 
primitive convictions that the blood is the life ; that the heart, as 
the blood-fountain, is the very soul of every personality ; that 
blood-transfer is soul - transfer ; that blood-sharing, human or 
divine-human, secures an interunion of natures; and that a 
union of the human nature with the divine is the highest ulti- 
mate attainment reached out after by the most primitive as well 
as by the most enlightened mind of humanity. With savage and 
barbarous peoples the rite lies at the foundations of cannibalism ; 
it is the motive of sacrifices, in which the animal is offered to the 
god as a substitute for the human blood. In one form the drops 
of blood were put in wine or other draughts and drunken ; then 
the wine was drunken without the actual presence of the blood ; 
whence we have the use of wine in pledges of friendship and in 
marriage. Among the Jews it is symbolized in circumcision ; 
among Christians, in the use of wine in the sacrament. 

Blood of Christ. Many cities profess to possess as a relic 
some portion of the actual blood of Christ. St. Louis brought 
particles to Paris which he had received from the Emperor of 
Constantinople. Eeaders of Chaucer will remember " the blode 
of Crist that it is in Hayles." This is probably the same men- 
tioned by Matthew Paris as brought to England from Jerusalem 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



127 



in the middle of the thirteenth century. The church of St. 
John Lateran in Eome, the Imperial Monastery at Weingarten, 
a church in Mantua, and the Chapel of the Precious Blood in 
Bruges, all put forward similar claims. The two latter are con- 
sidered the best authenticated. The relic of Mantua is supposed 
to have been preserved by Longinus the centurion. It reposes 
in a silver shrine attributed to Benvenuto Cellini. The precious 
blood at Bruges, which is one of the most famous of all the city's 
possessions, is reputed to have been collected from the wounds by 
Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus when they took down the 
body from the cross. It was brought to Bruges by Thierry of 
Alsace, Count of Flanders, in 1147. He had received it from his 
brother-in-law, Baldwin III., King of Jerusalem. 

Against these legends, however, must be put the opinion of St. 
Thomas Aquinas that all the particles of blood which Christ shed 




Henry III. carrying the Precious Blood to Westminster. 
(From a drawing by Matthew Paris.) 

in his passion were reassumed by him in his resurrection, " and 
that the blood which is kept in some churches as relics did not 
flow from Christ's side, but is said to have flowed miraculously 
from some image of Christ when struck." Benedict XIY., on 
the other hand, admits the possibility that some particles of 
Christ's blood may not have been reassumed and may remain as 
relics. In this case they are not reunited to the Godhead, and it 
would be the crime of idolatry to give them divine worship. 

The feast of the Precious Blood was instituted and fixed for 
the first Sunday of July by Pius IX. after his return irom 
Gaeta. There were already a mass and an office for the Friday 
after the fourth Sunday in Lent, but they were permitted only 
for certain places. 

Nearly six centuries ago, however, the extraordinary devotion 
paid to the relic in Bruges by the inhabitants and visitors had 



128 CURIOSITIES OF 

induced the ecclesiastical and civil authorities to institute a 
solemn procession in which it should be borne in the streets. 
The first ceremony was performed on May 3, 1311. 

A Confraternity of the Precious Blood, consisting of thirty 
members, with a provost and four chaplains, was established to 
guard it at all times. That confraternity still exists, though it 
has unfortunately discarded the picturesque costume of mediaeval 
times. 

It would be impossible to describe the vicissitudes and dangers 
to which the relic has been exposed. One legendarj- episode, 
however, is sufficiently curious to record. Philip van Artevelde 
marched on Bruges with five thousand men on May 2, 1382, and 
encamped outside the city. The procession, which at that time 
followed a route less protected than at present, was proceeding 
on its way, when an irregular band of armed burghers rushed 
out of the gates to attack the men of Ghent, and unintentionally 
threw the procession into confusion. The clergy stood their 
ground for a time, but were ultimately affected with the prevail- 
ing panic and took to flight. The bearer of the sacred relic, 
also losing his head, cast about him how he could save the 
treasure, and, finding no other means, threw the crystal phial 
into the canal which bounds the Beguinage. 

The inhabitants, having recovered from their groundless alarm, 
became inconsolable for the loss of their relic ; they conjectured 
that the men of Ghent must have carried it off, and the misad- 
venture seemed to them to presage further calamities. One day 
a nun of the Beguinage who had gone to draw water saw some 
glittering object at the bottom of the canal. With the help of 
her superior the object was easily drawn out, and was found to 
be the lost relic. The news was received with extraordinary 
enthusiasm, and the Beguinage was besieged by enormous crowds 
eager to bear their treasure back to its own chapel with special 
pomp. This incident is the alleged cause of certain privileges 
still enjoyed by the Beguines, and is represented in an ancient 
picture in the church of their settlement. 

In 1578 the Calvinists distinguished themselves in a manner 
equalled afterwards only by the sansculottes of 1792. When 
reading the accounts of their depredations in Bruges, especially 
upon the Chapel of the Sacred Blood, the most persistent Prot- 
estant may well shudder. Happily, the relic was carried off and 
hidden by the provost Malvenda in his own house. The people 
to this day hold in special respect those houses which at different 
times have afforded an asylum to their beloved treasure. In 1792 
the French entered Bruges and completed the havoc begun by 
the Calvinists. The adventures through which the relic passed 
read like some mediaeval romance, and the devotion and care be- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 129 

stowed on it by the confraternity excite the moat sympathetic 
interest. It was not until May 2, 1819, that it was restored to 
its former resting-place and exposed for the veneration of the 
faithful. 

The solemn ceremonies were again established, and have been 
continued without interruption up to the present day. The pro- 
cession, though stripped of much of its ancient splendor, is ma- 
terially the same ; and the enthusiasm surrounding it is not less 
marked than it was six hundred years ago. 

A correspondent of the Saturday Review describes the proces- 
sion as he saw it in 1893. This being the jubilee year of the 
Bishop of Bruges, it was a doubly important occasion. Five 
members of the Belgian hierarchy, including the Cardinal Arch- 
bishop of Malines, were present. " The graceful costume of the 
seminaries, societies, and guilds of Bruges; the gorgeous crim- 
son vestments of the priests ; the choristers, in scarlet cassocks, 
swinging the heavy silver censers and chanting as they slowly 
marched before the Sacred Blood, formed a most imposing spec- 
tacle. Grayly painted or richly vested images of the patron 
saints of Bruges, borne on litters, wore followed or preceded by 
children carrying the emblems of their martyrdom and led by a 
boy or girl dressed to represent the saint in life. Two little 
boys, representing St. John the Baptist and the child Jesus, at- 
tracted particular attention ; and a man in a purple robe, as 
Christ bearing the cross, was an impressive figure. The long 
procession, with its many tapers and brilliant banners, winding 
through the streets of the old city, crossing and recrossing the 
canals, presented an imposing spectacle. The official presence 
of civil and military persons marked its unique character as the 
great civic and popular as well as the most solemn religious cere- 
mony of Flanders. After the procession the benediction was 
given by the cardinal archbishop from an altar erected in the 
open air, in the Place du Bourg, and in front of the Chapel of 
the Sacred Blood." 

The blood is contained in a crystal cylinder, closed at each 
end by a golden crown : when the relic is exposed, this cylinder 
is fastened to a silver chain hanging round a priest's neck. The 
shrine in which the reliquary is carried is of very elaborate gold 
and silver workmanship, made by Jean Crabbe, a goldsmith of 
the city, in 1617. It consists of a hexagonal base covered by a 
baldacchino which is supported by six slender fluted pillars ; 
within stands the shrine proper, a coffer surmounted by a crucifix 
and figures of the Blessed Virgin and St. John ; above the cru- 
cifix hangs the enamelled crown presented by Mary of Burgundy 
and worn by her on state occasions; upon the baldacchino are 
three open, domed niches, also resting on little columns, contain- 

9 



130 CURIOSITIES OF 

iDg the figures of the Saviour, St. Donat, and St. Basil ; the 
centre niche is itself surmounted by a fourth, in which is an 
image of the Madonna and Child ; above this, again, is the sym- 
bolic pelican feeding her young. The figures are of solid gold, 
the rest of the shrine being of silver gilt and thickly incrusted 
with precious stones. 

Blood Tax in the Pyrenees. There is a vague tradition 
that some time in the thirteenth century, in the high pasture- 
lands of Arias, in the Pyrenees, some shepherds of the valley of 
Eoncal, in Navarre, were murdered by shepherds of the valley 
of Bareton, in Beam. One is shown on an upland lawn on 
French soil stones that are said to cover the graves of the vic- 
tims, and the story lives on in a chanson still sung in the can- 
ton of the Baretonnais. In consequence of this massacre, the 
Baretonnais were condemned in perpetuity to the payment of a 
tax to the Boncalais, and this they accepted apparently as an 
alternative, or possibly as an end, to a vendetta. The tax has 
been paid during the last six or seven hundred years. The ex- 
traordinary thing is that it survived the Eevolution. 

The scene of the ceremony is the Pierre de St.-Martin, a fron- 
tier stone remote from roads and villages under the Pic d' Arias. 

A correspondent of the London Pall Mall Gazette thus describes 
the celebration in 1896 : " By nine o'clock in the morning a com- 
pany of about one hundred and fifty had assembled, including 
the sous-prefet of the Basses-Pyrenees, who attended, however, 
merely as a spectator, the cure of one of the Baretonnais villages 
and his vicaire, and some gardes des montagnes and douaniers. 
The Spaniards were the last to appear, heralding their approach 
by musket-shots, and on their arrival the business of the day 
began. 

" The two peoples drew up in line on either side of the frontier 
stone in their respective territories. Immediately opposite the 
stone was the alcade of Isaba, wearing a black coat edged with 
crimson, with a hood and long false sleeves, and round his neck 
a large white pleated collar, the whole costume dating from 1600. 
He carried a black baton tipped with silver, the wand of his office 
as chief-justice of the court. He was attended by a notary and 
supported by the alcades of Urzainqui, Garde, and Ustarroz, — 
the other villages of the Eoncal concerned, — habited in long, 
full-skirted, black, eighteenth-century collarless coats, long waist- 
coats, and the usual broad violet waistbands, knee-breeches, and 
black stockings of the Navarrese. A number of their followers 
were armed, and stood to attention with their guns loaded. A 
herald by the side of the President carried a javelin to which 
was attached a crimson streamer, — a sign of just revenge. On 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 131 

the other side it must be confessed that the French presented a 
less imposing appearance. They wore their blue blouses and 
Bearnaise caps, and here and there were some in the red-striped 
waistcoats said to be peculiar to the Baretonnais. The maires of 
Arette, Lanne, Aramits, and Issor were to be distinguished only 
by their tricolor scarfs, which they wore round their waists over 
their blouses. (It was noticeable, by the way, that the national 
colors were not displayed on the Spanish side.) The French 
herald carried a javelin bearing a white streamer, — sign of the 
pacific intentions of those for whom he acted, all of whom were 
unarmed. 

"The order of proceedings is fixed by a document bearing 
the date of 1375. The President, the alcade of Isaba, speaking 
in Spanish, demanded of the French if they desired peace. The 
maires replied, 'Yes,' in the same language. Their herald then 
advanced and laid his javelin on the top of the stone in line with 
the frontier. The Spanish herald then drove his lance into 
French soil close to the stone, the two lances thus forming a 
cross. One of the French maires then placed his right hand on 
the section of the cross on the stone, then an alcade his hand on 
the Frenchman's, and so on in order, the alcade of Isaba's hand 
being the last. Then on the pile of hands the latter rested the 
baton of justice, and all took the oath of peace. The President 
then cried three times, ^ Faz davans' ('Peace henceforth'), and 
at this signal the Spaniards discharged their pieces over the 
heads of the Frenchmen, and consequently in the direction of 
France. Then followed Z'm^o^ 6?u 5<^n^. Originally the payment 
was three white mares, but, these being difficult to procure, the 
Baretonnais were allowed to substitute three heifers of a partic- 
ular color and breed. Six or seven of these creatures had been 
brought. The Spanish veterinary, having taken the oath by 
placing his right thumb on the top of his baton that he would 
deal fairly, proceeded to examine the animals. One of the three 
first offered was rejected, and this gave rise to a very lively dis- 
pute before the alcade, who, it maybe observed, with his shaven 
face, serious judicial air, and perfect self-command, acted his 
part to perfection. Unmoved, apparently, by the display of feel- 
ing on both sides, he listened to all, spoke little, but apparently 
to the point, and succeeded finally in quelling the storm. The 
affair of the animals (which were valued at about six pounds 
each) having been settled, and an account of it drawn up by the 
notary, it was asked if the compact between the two valleys had 
been observed during the past year, and if any one wished to 
speak. No one replying, the alcade then presented his baton to 
the two Spanish and to the two French gardes des montagnes^ 
who, placing their right thumbs on it, swore as representatives 



132 CURIOSITIES OF 

to observe the convention. The notary then obtained the signa- 
tures of the aicades and maires to his proces-verbal for lodgement 
among the archives of the Eoncalais. This closed the proceed- 
ings, and the assembly broke up." 

Boar's Head, Bringing in the. In mediaeval England it 
was customary to commence all great Christmas feasts by the 
solemn ceremony of bringing in the boar's head as the initial 
dish. The master-cook, preceded by trumpeters and other musi- 
cians, and followed by huntsmen with boar-spears and drawn 
falchions and pages carrying mustard, bore the smoking head 
aloft on a silver platter, which he deposited at the head of the 
table. The head was garnished and garlanded with rosemary 
and laurel, and a lemon was placed between its grinning chops. 
Holinshed tells us that in the year 1170 upon the day of the 
young prince's coronation King Henry II. " served his son at the 
table as server, bringing up the boar's head with trumpets before 
it, according to the manner." (^Chronicles, iii. 76.) 

The custom goes back to pre-Christian days. The Druids killed 
a boar at the winter solstice and offered its head in sacrifice to 
Freya, the goddess of peace and plenty, who was supposed to 
ride upon a boar with golden bristles. Hence it was not unusual 
even in Christian times to gild the head. The very lemon placed 
in the boar's mouth was a Norse symbol of plenty. An orange 
or an apple was sometimes substituted. The common practice 
in England of eating sucking pig at Christmas has the same 
origin. 

Queen Victoria has retained the old custom. Her Christmas 
dinner at Osborne House or Windsor has for over fifty years 
consisted of a baron of beef and woodcock pie, — historic dishes, 
— while the bringing ii^ of the boar's head is performed with all 
the ancient ceremony. 

In many of the public schools and universities the boar's head 
is still retained as the great dish of the Christmas banquet. At 
these institutions every diner rises and joins in the " Boar's 
Song," which has been sung for centuries. The words are set 
" to the common chant of the prose version of the psalms in 
cathedrals." They run as follows : 

A Carol bryngyng in the Boar's Head. 

Caput apri defero 
Reddens laudes Domino. 

The bore's head in hande bring I, 
With garlandes gay and rosemary, 
I pray you all synge merely, 
Qui estis in convivio. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 133 

The bore's head I understande, 
Is the chefe servyce in this lande 
Loke wherer it be fande 
Servite cum eantico. 

Be gladde, lords, both more and lasse, 

For this hath ordayned our stewarde 
To cheer you all this Christmasse, 

The bore's head with mustarde. 

This carol is contained in Wynkyn de Worde's collection of 
" Christmasse Carolles" (1521), but is there given as an old song. 
Here is another carol which was anciently very popular ; 

Ancient Boar's Head Canticle. 

In die natiuitat. 

Nowell, nowell, nowell, nowell, 

Tydyng' gode y thynke to telle. 
The borys hede that we bryng here, 
Betokeneth a prince without pere, 
Ys born this day to bye v'dere. 

Nowell, etc. 

A bore ys a souverayn beste, 
And acceptab(l)e in eu'ry feste, 
So mote thys lorde be to moste and leste. 
Nowell, etc. 

This ttorys hede we bring with song, 
In w^orchyp of hym that thus sprang 
Of a virgins to redresse all wrong. 
Nowell, etc. 

Queen's College, Oxford, is especially famous for its continued 
retention of the Boar's Head ceremonial. The method as prac- 
tised for five centuries is as follows : A large boar's head, weigh- 
ing between sixty and seventy pounds, surmounted by a cross, 
and wreathed with gilded sprays of laurel and bay, mistletoe and 
rosemary, with small banners surrounding, is brought into the hall 
by three bearers, whose entry is announced by trumpets. A pro- 
cession of the Provost and Fellows precedes the entry of the 
boar's head. The bearers are accompanied by the precentors, 
who chant the " Caput apri defero," the Latin refrain being joined 
in by the company. 

There is a local legend to explain the institution of the cere- 
mony. Some five hundred years ago, so the story runs, a student 
of the college wandering near Shotover Hill in deep study of 
Aristotle was attacked by a wild boar. Having no other means 
of defence, he shoved his book down the animal's throat, exclaim- 



134 CURIOSITIES OF 

ing, " Graecum est !" The sage choked the savage, and his head 
was brought home in triumph by the student. 

Hone in his " Every Day Book" (1827, vol. ii. p. 1649) tells us 
that the lessee of the tithes at Hornchurch in Essex, which is 
attached to New College, Oxford, supplies every Christmas Day 
a boar's head, dressed and garnished with bay-leaves, etc. In 
the afternoon it is carried in procession into the mill-field ad- 
joining the churchyard, where it is wrestled for, and after- 
wards feasted upon at one of the public houses by the rustic 
conqueror and his friends, with all the merriment peculiar to the 
season. 

A paragraph quoted by Thiselton Dyer (" British Customs," 
p. 479) from the Daily News of January 5, 1852, shows that the 
custom still survived at that date : " By ancient charter or usage 
in Horn Church a boar's head is wrestled for in a field adjoining 
the church, a boar, the property of the parish, having been 
slaughtered for the purpose. The boar's head, elevated on a pole 
and decorated with ribbons, was brought into the ring when the 
competitors entered, and the prize was awarded." 

Boat Sunday. In Kent, England, the Sunday (usually in 
December) preceding the departure of the fishermen for the 
herring-fisheries. All their friends from the neighboring vil- 
lages attend the morning services to bid them farewell. When 
later in the week the men start upon their expedition, they send 
a piece of sea-beef on shore from each boat to such of their 
friends at the public houses as they wish " weel beea." This 
occasions "a bit of a supper," at which those who are going 
away and those who remain enjoy good cheer heightened by 
mutual good will. (Cole: History and Antiquities of Filey ^ 
1828, p. 143.) 

Bobolition Day. Bobolition was the negro attempt at pro- 
nouncing "abolition," and was gleefully seized upon by the 
enemies of the Abolition movement. During the earl}^ part of 
the nineteenth century the negroes of Boston observed the 14th 
of July to commemorate the introduction of measures for the 
abolition of the slave-trade. Hence it was derisively called 
Bobolition Day, and the orderly convention of black men that 
annually assembled to do honor to the occasion was greeted with 
a fusillade of rotten fruit and eggs and much jesting abuse. A 
correspondent of the New York Nation writes that he remem- 
bers having seen the Avord at least as early as 1824 " on a broad 
sheet containing what purported to be an account of a boboli- 
tion celebration at Boston, July 14. At the top of the broad 
sheet was a grotesque procession of negroes." At one of these 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 135 

Bobolition Day celebrations the famous Malapropian toast was 
seriously given in honor of the newly elected governor : 
•' Governor Brooks — May the mantelpiece of Caleb Strong fall 
on the head of his distinguished predecessor." 

Bodhi-druma. (Hindoo, " Tree of Understanding.") A big 
tree of the peepul tribe in Gaya, India, still pointed out as the 
identical tree under which Buddha accomplished the " medita- 
tion of perfection" by which he achieved Nirvana. It is more 
usually known to Europeans as the Bo-tree, a general term ex- 
tended also to its offshoots. The earliest record of the original 
tree is that preserved in the Chinese Hwen-Thsang's narrative 
(about A.D. 637). He found it surrounded by an oblong walled 
enclosure of brick, some twenty feet in height and five hundred 
paces in circuit and girdled with umbrageous trees. In the 
centre of this enclosure stood ihe Diamond Throne, dating from 
the foundation of the world. When all the world quaked, this 
throne alone was unmoved, and seated on it all the Buddhas of 
past ages had achieved the divine climax of wisdom and power. 
And there, immovable, it still remained ; only since the degen- 
eracy of this latter Kalpa sand and soil had spread over the 
precious adamant, and it was no longer visible. Above its site, 
however, still grew the tree, which had undergone many vicissi- 
tudes, but survived them all. According to the legend, the 
leaves did not fall either in summer or in autumn, but the tree 
suddenly denuded itself and as suddenly assumed an entirely 
new leafage on the anniversary of the day of Buddha's Nirvana. 
Every year on this day, kings, ministers, and magistrates assem- 
bled around this tree, watered it with milk, illuminated it with 
lanterns, and withdrew after gathering the leaves which had 
fallen. 

Other Bo-trees said to have been propagated from slips of the 
great original are extant. A very famous one is in the sacred 
city of Anarajapoora, in Ceylon, reputed to have been planted 
in B.C. 228. Its leaves are carried away as treasures by pilgrims, 
but it is too sacred to be touched with a knife : hence they are 
gathered only when they fall. 

A famous tree connected with Buddha-worship is that preserved 
in front of the lamasery of Kunbum, in Northeastern Thibet, 
near the sources of China's Yellow Eiver. It is a variety of 
the elder, and on its leaves and bark are indelibly inscribed by 
no earthly hand, the Lamas say, sacred formulae and images. 
Father Hue first described this tree to Europeans. He made no 
attempt to solve the mystery. Later travellers have made 
various guesses, as that some insect works indistinct tracings in 
which the faithful read what they choose. But the latest of all, 



136 CURIOSITIES OF 

M. Edouard Blanc, insists that the figures are unmistakable and 
are an evident artifice of human hands. The fraud, he says, has 
been handed down from one generation of Lamas to another. 
They sell the leaves to pilgrims, claiming for them rare medici- 
nal virtues. 

Bodmin Riding. A festival kept until recently at Bodmin, 
in Cornwall, Wales, on the Sunday and Monday following St. 
Thomas's Day (July 7). In the preceding October an antici- 
patory puncheon of ale had been brewed and bottled. On 
Sunday morning two young men representing the " wardens" 
bore these bottles in baskets around the town, attended by a 
band of fifes and drums and sometimes other instruments. 
Pausing before the house of every leading citizen, the crier 
shouted the salutation, " To the people of this house a prosper- 
ous morning, long life, and a merry riding." Then the musicians 
struck up the riding-tune, and the householder was solicited to 
taste the ale. He responded by taking in a bottle and paying 
such sum as his means or his humor dictated. Monday morning 
a procession was formed, — all who could afford it riding on a 
horse or an ass, — and proceeded first to the Priory, to receive 
two large garlands of flowers fixed on staves, and then through 
the principal streets to the Town End. Here the festivities were 
formally organized. Wrestling, foot-races, jumping in sacks, 
and other games were practised. A curious kind of mock trial 
was also one of the features, A Lord of Misrule was appointed. 
Before him was dragged any unpopular person so unlucky as to 
be captured, to answer to a charge of felony. Inculpatory 
evidence was furnished by any breach of good manners, negli- 
gence of attire, or other accident in his bearing or appearance. 
The trial was conducted with much gravity, sentence was pro- 
nounced, and the culprit was hurried off to receive his punish- 
ment, which consisted " in some ungracious prank or other, more 
to the scorn than hurt of the party condemned" (Carew: Sur- 
vey of Cornwall, 1811, p. 296), and usually concluded by his 
being dragged through the mire of Halgaver. The latter name 
" signifieth the goat's moor, and such a place it is, lying a little 
without the town, and very full of quagmires." (Ibid.) To this 
day " Take him before the Mayor of Halgaver" and " Present 
him in Halgaver Court" are Cornish sayings. 

Boeuf Gras. (Fr., "Fat Ox.") The fete or procession of 
the Fat Ox is the culminating Carnival festivity celebrated by 
the butchers of Paris on Mardi-Gras, or Shrove Tuesday (q. v.). 
Comparative mythologists trace the origin of the custom from 
the processions in honor of the bull Apis among the Egyptians^ 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 137 

though similar ceremonies in ancient Greece and Eome were 
celebrated at the equinox of spring, when the sun enters the 
sign Taurus, at which oxen or bulls were sacrificed. But a more 
immediate ancestry may be found in the similar ceremonies 




BcEUF GRAS of 1827. 
(From the official programme.) 

among the ancient Gauls, who likewise had a special cult for 
this zodiacal sign and dressed the ox up for the occasion in an 
ecclesiastical stole. As Christianity penetrated Gaul, the sacri- 
fice of the ox lost its importance and its sacred character, as 
well as its periodic recurrence. Under Charles Y. it had become 
a mere occasional recreation, in which all classes joined. In 
course of time a rivalry sprang up among the butchers as to 
who should furnish the ox, and eventually the guild of butchers 
took the matter under their charge and raised the necessary 
funds. The procession, celebrated so early as 1512, is commemo- 
rated in a contemporary stained-glass window presented by the 
master-butchers of Ear-sur-Seine. Two butchers, in holiday 
attire, lead the ox by means of a scarf wrapped around its neck ; 
preceding them are two apprentices playing musical instruments, 
while children shout and dance around them. 

The modern date- of the procession was not fixed until the 
introduction of the Carnival into France under Louis XIV., 
when it was permanently settled on as the day before Ash 
Wednesday. 

A memorable procession was that of 1739. It started from 
I'Apport, Paris. The ox was crowned with a garland of leaves, 
and his shoulders were covered with tapestry. On his back sat 
a naked child, decorated with a huge scarf of blue ribbon and 
carrying a gilded sceptre in one hand, a drawn sword in the 
other. The child was known as the King of the Butchers. 



138 CURIOSITIES OF 

Fifteen butcher boys dressed in red and white formed the ox's 
escort. Two led him by his horns, after the fashion of the 
ancient sacrificers. Other butchers and their apprentices pre- 
ceded and followed, all playing on viols, fifes, and drums. The 
procession not only paraded the streets of Paris, but also invaded 
the houses of various magistrates, who gave gifts of money to 
the celebrants. The President not happening to be at home, the 
Boeuf Gras was led up the steps of the Palace of Justice, and, 
after being presented to the oflScial who in his red robe was 
sitting on the judges' bench, was led back again into the streets. 
The festivities on this occasion began on Monday and lasted 
until Ash Wednesday. 

The Eevolution put a temporary end to the Carnival and to 
the Boeuf Gras. In 1805 Napoleon restored both by an ordinance 
dated February 23. The ox was usually paraded through the 
streets during the last three days of the Carnival. The little 
King of the Butchers was transformed into a Cupid carrying a 
quiver of arrows and a torch. The escort consisted of butcher- 
boys disguised as mythological and historical characters. Eoy- 
alty itself deigned to review the parade from the windows and 
balconies of the Tuileries. 

The choice of the ox itself became a matter of anticipatory 
public interest. Eival butchers competed as to who should 
submit the fattest, sleekest, and largest candidate. A jury of 
twelve expert butchers was appointed. Their decision was 
based upon height, breadth, weight, and general comeliness. 
Here is how the choice made in 1846 was announced on the 
programme for that year : " On the 12th of February, 1846, in 
the midst of an immense crowd, took place the competition for the 
choice of the Fat Ox which according to ancient custom is to do 
the honors of the Carnival. At midday, 1607 oxen were ex- 
hibited in the great fair-grounds. The jury selected from tliem 
such as best fulfilled the triple conditions of strength, stature, 
and adiposity. Then the oxen thus selected were led to the 
court of the slaughter-house at Caisse de Poissy. Here the jury 
rendered its final verdict, which declared that Dagobert, five and 
a half years old, belonging to M. Cornet, of Caen, worthy suc- 
cessor to his father, was the unanimous choice for the Carnival 
of 1846. Dagobert in bulk has no rival save the elephant of the 
Jardin des Plantes. He weighs five kilos more than Pere Goriot, 
the Boeuf Gras of 1845." From 1848 to 1851 the procession was 
suspended, mainly for monetary reasons. In the latter year 
Arnault of the Hippodrome assumed all the expenses of a re- 
vival. After 1855 there was an increase in the number and 
gorgeousness of the paraders, and eventually not one but several 
Fat Oxen took part, and the procession became one of the most 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 139 

brilliant popular fdtes under the Second Empire. Like many 
other things, however, it was dropped on account of the dis- 
asters of 1870, and was not revived until 1893. 

" The revival," says the correspondent of the New York Sun, 
writing from Paris on February 18, " was on a grand scale. 
Three oxen were provided, and the festivities were spread over 
three days, the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday before Ash Wed- 
nesday brought in Lent. This time the procession was organ- 
ized not by the butchers alone, but by the Food Syndicate, whose 
president is M. Marquely, a well-known restaurant owner, assisted 
by M. Zidler, the manager of two Parisian music-halls. In the 
procession were seventeen carriages, drawn by ninety-two horses, 
fourteen floats, each with six horses, one hundred and seventy- 
eight horsemen in costumes, and seven hundred mummers on 
foot. 

" No expense was spared. It is even said that the actual cost 
was more than double the original estimate. While some idea 
may be formed of the magnificence of the procession, no words 
can picture the animation of the great crowd shut in between 
the high houses of the boulevards, over twenty -five miles long, 
its enthusiasm, good humor, and extreme politeness, which on 
those days even affected the policemen. They were seen smiling 
at the showers of confetti, and even throwing them back occa- 
sionally without roughness." 

At Marseilles the Fat Ox is paraded through the streets not 
on Mardi-Gras, but on the eve and the day of Corpus Christi. 
Eufii's' "History of Marseilles" refers the origin of the custom 
to the fourteenth century. The Confraternity of the Holy Sac- 
rament, wishing to feast the poor on the day which they par- 
ticularly honored, bought a huge ox and marched it through the 
poorer quarters of the town as at once an advertisement and an 
invitation. The procession gave so much pleasure that it was 
kept up annually. Various superstitions grew around it. Old 
women were careful to make children kiss the ox as a preser- 
vative against sickness, everybody clamored to get some small 
portion of the meat as an emblem of luck, and whenever the ox 
paused before a house to attend to any of the functions of nature 
the inmates were envied for the fortunate omen. 

Bona Dea. (Lat., " The Good Goddess.") An ancient 
Eoman festival in honor of the goddess Maia, celebrated May 1. 
The word Maia is derived from the month in which her chief 
festival was celebrated. On this occasion the Eomans seem to 
have recognized the secret, mysterious forces of nature. The 
cult of the goddess belonged especially to women. Besides the 
regular festival on May 1, mysterious rites in honor of the Bona 



140 CURIOSITIES OF 

Dea were performed by women during the early part of Decem- 
ber. These mysteries were celebrated by the Eoman women 
with great solemnity. They were held in the night, and in the 
house either of the consul or the prsetor, who on this occasion 
must be absent from his home, for no male was allowed to be 
present. When Cicero was consul, B.C. 63, the celebration took 
place at his house on the night of December 3. It will be re- 
membered that on this day Cicero had made the speech which is 
known as his third oration against Catiline, describing to the 
people the capture of the conspirators. When the assembly was 
dismissed, the people accompanied him home, as was usual, but, 
his house being occupied by the women, he was obliged to go to 
a friend's house to spend the night. Here he sat deliberating 
with a few of his trusted counsellors what disposition should be 
made of the prisoners, when a message came hastily from his 
wife Terentia that an auspicious sign had occurred in the mys- 
teries, at which he should take courage. The fire upon the altar 
had blazed up with great brilliancy, and when the women were 
terrified, the Yestal Virgins, who had the direction of this festi- 
val, at once interpreted the event as a good omen, and urged 
Terentia to send word to her husband to that effect. 

The next year, b.o. 62, the mysteries were celebrated in the 
house of Caesar, who was prsetor. Having lately been elected 
Pontifex Maximus, he occupied the public residence which be- 
longed to this officer, — the regia, or palace. This was on the 
Sacred Way, adjoining the residence of the Yestal Virgins, to 
whom this house was afterwards given by Augustus when he be- 
came Pontifex Maximus. A young nobleman of profligate 
character, named Publius Clodius, by an understanding with 
Caesar's wife Pompeia, contrived to steal into the building in 
the dress of a harp-player ; for the mysteries were celebrated to 
the sound of musical instruments. But one of the slaves of the 
household, undertaking to ask him some questions, detected him 
by his voice, and called Caesar's mother, Aurelia, who at once 
suspended the rites, when the women speedily drove the offender 
out of the house. It was the greatest scandal in the history of 
the republic. Clodius escaped punishment, — it was believed, by 
bribery. Caesar at once divorced his wife, not assuming that she 
was guilty, but asserting that Caesar's wife must be above sus- 
picion. 

Boniface, St. (680-755). The "Apostle to G-ermany," one 

*of the greatest missionaries of the Church in the eighth century. 

He is commemorated on his death-day, June 5. His real name 

was Winfred, and he was a native of Devonshire, England. 

Ordained a priest at thirty years of age, he resolved to become 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 141 

a missionary to those parts of Germany which were still idola- 
trous. At Fulda he founded the celebrated abbey, and he left 
other ecclesiastical monuments to himself in Bavaria, Thuringia, 
Saxony, etc. Gregory III. made him Archbishop and Primate 
of Germany. He was massacred in Friesland by a band of 
pagans who had sworn to take his hfe. He always carried in 
his bosom a copy of the " De Bono Mortis" of St. Ambrose. 
This copy, stained with his blood, was long preserved as a sacred 
relic in the monastery at Fulda, where he was buried. A portion 
of his skull is still kept there. At Dochum was long shown 
another part of his skull, together with his cape and chasuble. 
Other relics are at Louvain, Mechlin, Cologne, Bruges, Prague, 
Eichfeld, and Erfurt. 

Bounds, Beating the. A Protestant survival of the ancient 
Catholic custom of processions on the Eogation Days (g. v.). 
The processions, which originated in Gaul and were brought 
over to England by St. Augustine, used to be performed with 
great pomp. As every parish came to have its own procession, 
which could not transgress the limits of that parish, the cere- 
mony gradually and insensibly drew to itself some of the still 
more ancient pagan practices of the Terminalia (q. v.), or Feast 
of Boundaries. The lord of the manor in country places, or the 
highest member of the parochial clergy in cities, led the way, 
followed by surpliced ecclesiastics bearing crosses, and public 
officials and other prominent parishioners with hand-bells, ban- 
ners, and staves. They perambulated round the parish singing 
rogations or litanies, stopping at crosses, forming crosses on the 
ground, " saying or singing gospels to the corn," and allowing 
"drinkings and good cheer." But good cheer did not mean 
meat, inasmuch as the Eogation days were fasts, or at least days 
of abstinence. 

If the parish contained a fine oak-tree, the gospel was read 
here, the tree receiving the name of Gospel Oak. In most 
places a representation of the evil one, in the form of a dragon, 
was a part of the procession. As often as a pause was made 
for prayer the dragon was taken to a place quite out of earshot, 
and left there until the procession moved on again. Hence 
many rural parishes even to this day have their Dragon's Eock 
or Dragon's Well, denoting the place where the dragon reposed 
at prayer-time or where it was kicked, stoned, buffeted, and 
finally pulled to pieces by the processionists at the close of the 
third day's rogation. 

The Eeformation did not abolish the processions, though it 
altered their character, and eventually transferred them to 
Ascension Day itself ' The Book of Common Prayer still enjoins 



142 CURIOSITIES OF 

such part of the ancient ceremony as relates to the perambulating 
of the circuit of parishes, conformably to the regulation made 
in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. " The people shall once a year, 
at the time accustomed," says the injunction of that sovereign, 
" with the curate and substantial men of the parish, walk about 
the parishes as they were accustomed, and at their return to 
church make their common prayers ; provided that the curate in 
the said common perambulations, as heretofore in the days of 
Rogations, at certain convenient places, shall admonish the people 
to give thanks to God, in the beholding of God's benefits, for the 
increase and abundance of his fruits upon the face of the earth, 
with the saying of Psalm civ., Benedic, anima mea, etc. ; at which 
time also the same minister shall inculcate this and such like 
sentences, ' Cursed be he which translateth the bounds and dales 
of his neighbour,' or such other words of prayer as shall be 
hereafter appointed." 

The religious sentiment gradually died out of these parochial 
perambulations, and they degenerated into colossal junketings. 
The traditional usage of always following in the old track gave 
them at certain stages of their progress a blithesome steeple- 
chase aspect. If a canal, for example, had been cut through the 
old boundaries, some of the perambulators had to cross it, either 
by swimming or in boats. So if a house had been erected over 
the line the procession claimed the right to pass through it. 
Chambers's " Book of Days" tells of a house in Buckinghamshire 
which had an oven traversing the line. It was customary in 
the perambulations to put a boy into the recess, to preserve the 
integrity of the procession. Now boys everywhere looked on 
Beating the Bounds as a more elaborate game of Follow my 
Leader. The boys in this Buckinghamshire parish used to be 
ambitious of the honor of invading the oven. They settled their 
claims by lot as they approached the house. On one occasion 
the perambulators found the oven heated up, baking bread. 
There was a cry from the juvenile members, " Tom Smith is the 
boy to go into the oven." Tom Smith uttered a wild shriek and 
made off as fast as his legs would carry him. Another boy was 
asked to climb over the roof of the oven, and thus the boundary 
line was deemed to be sufficiently maintained. 

On another occasion, in London, a nobleman's carriage hap- 
pened to be standing across the boundary line. His lordship was 
paying a visit in the opposite house. The coachman was re- 
quested to move out of the way. He refused until his master 
should tell him to move. The churchwarden calmly opened one 
door of the carriage and passed through the other, followed by 
the rest of the procession. 

" Hone's Year Book" gives a rather humorous account of a 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 143 

man who being asked whether such a stream were a boundary 
replies, " Ees, that 'tis, I'm sure o't, by the same token that I 
were tossed into 't, and paddled about there like a water-rat, till 
I were hafe dead." 

Sometimes the boys in the procession were whipped as they 
reached the boundaries, to impress their exact location upon 
plastic youth. At other times they were " bumped ;" i.e., the 
senior perambulators took hold of them by the shoulders and 
the heels and bumped what might be called the southern facade 
of the juvenile body against the landmark. ISTot only boys but 
strangers were frequently seized upon for the purpose. So re- 
cently as January 10, 1830, the London Observer recorded the 
trial of a case brought by an angler against the parishioners of 
Walthamstow parish. On the preceding Ascension Day he had 
been found angling in the Lea. The parishioners bethought them 
that to bump a stranger would produce an independent witness 
of parish boundary. But he relished neither the practice nor 
the reason for it, and the jury so far agreed with him that they 
rendered a verdict of fifty pounds damages. 

In several parishes in London the bounds are still beaten on 
Ascension Day. Men and boys make the tour of the parish 
limits, beating the landmarks with peeled willow rods. 

At Marlborough, in Devonshire, the mayor and the town- 
councillors perform the function ; and it is on record that on one 
occasion within the present centurj^ the mayor himself was thor- 
oughly ducked during his progress, in order to insure his remem- 
bering a certain bit of the river boundary. 

" In beating the bounds of the city of Oxford," says Ditch- 
field, " it is necessary for the mayor and corporation to take a 
boat and go on the river. A few years ago we read that ' the 
mayor and others were upset,' and later on the boat capsized. 
Perhaps this ducking was in lieu of bumping." (" Old English 
Customs," p. 116.) 

On Ascension Day, says Mackenzie in his "History of New- 
castle" (1827, vol. ii. p. 744), every year the mayor and bur- 
gesses of Newcastle survey the boundaries of the river Tyne. 
This annual festive expedition starts at the Mansion-House Quay, 
and proceeds to or near the place in the sea called Sparhawk, 
and returns up the river to the utmost limits of the corporation 
at Hedivin Streams. They are accompanied by the brethren of 
the Trinity House and the river jury in their barges. 

The bounds of the parish of St. Mary's, Leicester, are beaten 
every three years. The procession is composed of the vicar, 
churchwardens, and other officials, and two or three hundred 
boys. Formerly at one spot in the route a hole was dug, and 
any newly appointed parish officer was seized and his head 



144 CURIOSITIES OF 

placed in the bole, while his body was thumped with a shoveL 
A feast was held, and various sports followed, such as racing, 
bobbing for apples in buckets of water, etc. ; but these have 
been discontinued. 

At Lichfield on Ascension Day the choristers of the cathedral 
deck the houses and street-lamps in the parish of the Close with 
elm boughs. After the midday service the clergy and choir 
start in procession from the cathedral, properly vested, the boys 
carrying small pieces of elm, and go round the boundaries of the 
parish, making a halt at eight stations where wells exist or are 
said to have existed. At each of these stations the Gospel for 
the day is said by one of the priest-vicars in turn, followed by 
the singing of one verse of Psalm civ. or c. On re-entering the 
cathedral by the northwest door, the verse " Oh, enter then his 
gates with praise" is sung, and the company gather round the 
font, where the blessing is given, and the boys throw down their 
boughs. On the same day the sacrist gives a bun to every 
unconfirmed child in the parish. (Ditchfield: Old English 
Customs.') 

A queer variation of the custom is observed in Leighton Buz- 
zard, in accordance with the will of a London merchant, who 
founded ten almshouses in the town and who died in 1646. The 
trustees, accompanied by the town crier and a band of boys car- 
rying green boughs, beat the boundaries of the parish, stopping 
at the properties from whose incomes the charities are sup- 
ported. At all these places one boy stands on his head while 
the will is read. After the procession plum rolls are given to 
the boys. Until recently a half-pint of beer was given, but this 
has been suppressed, rolls being distributed to all the school-chil- 
dren instead. In the evening the trustees, the town crier, and 
the inmates of the almshouses dine together. 

In Scotland a similar ceremony is known as the Eiding of the 
Marches (^. v.). 

Boy-Bishop. One of the most curious observances of the 
mediaeval Church, mingling the sacred with the profane and 
seriousness with burlesque, was the election of a boy- bishop. 
The origin of the custom is not clearly understood, but it is 
known to have existed from the thirteenth century, both in 
England and on the Continent. On December 5, the eve of the 
festival of St. Nicholas, patron of children, all the boys who 
sang in the choir or served at the altar met in every parish 
church, cathedral, and nobleman's chapel, and elected from among 
their number a bishop and his prebendaries, or, as they were 
alternatively called, "a Nicholas and his clerks." These re- 
mained in office until Holy Innocents' Day, December 28. During 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 145 

this time, with the knowledge and sanction of his elders, the boy- 
bishop exercised nearly if not quite the whole of the episcopal 
functions, saying mass and vespers, giving benedictions, preaching 
sermons, going on visitations, occasionally filling up vacancies, 
and if he died during the time being buried with episcopal honors. 
Moreover, these pseudo-clergy, arrayed in their vestments, per- 
ambulated the neighborhood and demanded from passers-by and 
householders some small money tribute, which was known as the 
Bishop's Subsidy. Eoyalty itself deigned to be amused with the 
burlesque ritual of the mimic prelate. In the year 1299 we find 
Edward I., on his way to Scotland, permitting one of these boy- 
bishops to say vespers before him on the 7th of December, the 
day after St. Nicholas's Day, in his chapel at Hetton, near New- 
castle-upon-Tyne, and making a considerable present to the said 
bishop and certain other boys that came and sang with him on the 
occasion. What was the custom in the houses of the nobles 
may be learned from the "Northumberland Household Book," 
which tells us that "My lord useth and accustomyth to gyfe 
yerly, upon Saynt Nicolas-Even, if he kepe chapell for Saynt 
Nicolas, to the master of his childeren of his chapell, for one of 
the childeren of his chapell, yerely, vi^* viii^- ; and if Saynt 
Nicolas com owt of the towne wher my lord lyeth, and my 
lord kepe no chapell, than to have yerely iii'- iiij^-" 

The fun grew faster and more furious in the last days of the 
juvenile episcopacy. Towards the end of evensong on December 
27 the little Nicholas and his clerks, arrayed in their copes, bear- 
ing lighted tapers, and singing the words of the Apocalypse (chap, 
xiv.), " Centum quadraginta," walked in procession from the 
choir to the altar of the Blessed Trinity, which the boy-bishop 
incensed ; afterwards they all sang the anthem, and he recited 
the prayer commemorative of the Holy Innocents. Going back 
into the choir, these boys took possession of the upper canons' 
stalls, and those dignitaries themselves had to serve in the boys' 
place, and carry the candles, the thurible, and the book, like 
acolytes, thurifers, and lower clerks. Standing on high, wear- 
ing his mitre, and holding his pastoral stafi" in his left hand, the 
boy-bishop gave a solemn benediction to all present, and, while 
making the sign of the cross over the kneeling crowd, said, — 

Crucis signo vos consigno ; vestra sit tuitio, 
Quos nos emit et redemit suae earn is pretio. 

The next day, the feast itself of Holy Innocents, the boy- 
bishop preached a sermon, which had been written for him, prob- 
ably by some distinguished prelate. Thus, one from the pen of 
Erasmus, " Concio de Puero Jesu," spoken by a boy of St. Paul's 
School, London, is still preserved. 

10 



146 CURIOSITIES OF 

The Eeformers looked askance at all these and similar " mum- 
meries," and in 1542 Cranmer issued a sweeping proclamation 
against them : " Whereas heretofoie dyverse and many supersti- 
tions and childysshe observations have been used, and yet to this 
day are observed and kept in many and sondry parties of this 
realm, as upon Sainte Nicolas, Sainte Catheryne, Sainte Clem- 
ent, the Holy Innocentes, and such like ; children be strangelye 
decked and apparelid to counterfaite priestes, byshoppes, and 
women ; and so ledde with songes and daunces from house to 
house, bleassing the people, and gathcrynge of monye, and boyes 
doo singe masse and preache in the pulpitt . . . the Kyng's 
majestie willith and commaundeth that from henceforth all suche 
superstitions be loste atid clyerlye exstinguished." 

Queen Mary restored the ceremonial which her father had 
abrogated. Strype in his " Ecclesiastical Memorials" informs us 
that in 1556 on the 5th day of December " St. Nicholas, that is, 
a boy habited like a bishop in pontificalibus, went abroad in most 
parts of London, singing after the old fashion, and was received 
by many ignorant but well-disposed people into their houses, and 
had as much good cheer as ever was wont to be had before, at 
least in many places." 

With the final establishment of Protestantism in England the 
pastime of the boy-bishop disappeared ; but the well-known 
festivity of the Eton Montem appears to have originated in 
and been a continuance under another form of the mediaeval 
custom. 

Brabo or Brabon of Brussels. A gigantic figure which, 
with that of his wife Sumniana, is preserved in the City Hall of 
Brussels and takes part in all the parades and processions held 
on the feast of St. Grudula and other important occasions. (See 
Giants, Processions of.) According to local tradition, Servius 
Brabo was one of the generals of Julius Caesar, married to a niece 
of the latter. He was likewise the first Duke of Brabant and 
the first Marquis of Antwerp. This last dignitj^ he assumed after 
encouraging seven young men from Antwerp to kill Antigonus 
(g. !;.), a giant who was terrorizing Antwerp. Brabo, from whom 
descended a long line of dukes and likewise the brothers Aymon 
and Pepin of Landen, perished at Eome with Julius Caesar. 
The legend is probably a distorted summary of many popular 
fictions. 

Bread, Holy. (Fr. pain benit ; Lat. panis benedictus.) The 
distribution of holy bread is a Catholic rite entirely distinct from 
the administration of the communion, yet the two are frequently 
confounded together by Protestant travellers. In England be- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



147 



fore the Eeformation the distribution used to take place every 
Sunday after the principal mass. Probably this was the custom 
all throttgh the Western Church. At present the ceremony is 
only occasional. The holy bread has nothing sacramental in its 
nature. It is ordinary leavened bread, cut into small pieces, 
blessed, and given to the people after the manner of the love- 
feasts of the early Church, as a symbol of the fellowship and 




Distributing the Blessed Bread. 
(From Picart.) 

brotherly love which should exist among all who are of the same 
household of faith. In some cases we have evidence that the 
rich and powerful among the English relieved the parishioners 
from the burden of providing the holy bread by taking it upon 
themselves. Thus, on Palm Sun(iay in 1361, the then head of the 
great house of Berkeley offered to Our Blessed Lady in Berkeley 
Church a pound of virgin wax, ^^ pro candela caritatis'' and a 
bushel of fine wheat, ^^ pro pane benedicto,'' an offering which was 
continued for many generations. 

The distribution of holy bread does not seem to have been* dis- 
continued at once on the change of religion, for one of the rubrics 
at the end of the communion office in the Praj^er Book of 1549 
provides that "In such chapels annexed, where the people hath 
not been accustomed to pay any holy bread, there they must 



148 CURIOSITIES OF 

either make some charitable provision for the iDearing of the 
charges of the commanion, or else (for receiving the same) resort 
to their parish church." 

It appears from Foxe's "Acts and Monuments," ed. 1861, vol. 
vii. p. 461, that Latimer reluctantly permitted the use of holy 
water and holy bread in his diocese, because, his historian ex- 
plains, the days were then " so dangerous and variable that he 
could not in all things do what he would." With the Protestant 
settlement under EHzabetb, holy bread, which had been restored 
by Queen Mary, seems to have entirely disappeared from the 
Anglican Church. 

Many legends are preserved of miracles performed by the 
saints with holy bread. A fragment of a holy loaf blessed 
by St. Cuthbert cured an oflicer of King Egfrid's court of a 
dangerous sickness. St. Bernard of Clairvaux used the holy 
bread with great eflScacy in at least two cases. Laymen some- 
times brought the bread home with them and used it as a charm 
against the bite of mad dogs, and as a destroyer of rats. 

It has furnished the French with certain figures of speech. 
A well-merited disgrace is spoken of as ])ain benit, and there is 
the idiom " C'est pain benit que d'escroquer un avare," which 
Chambaud renders, " 'Tis nuts to one to cheat a covetous man." 
(Edward Peacock, in The Antiquary, vol. xvii. p. 191.) 

Brides of Venice. It was an ancient usage among the 
Venetians for twelve poor virgins, endowed by the state, to be 
united to their lovers, every year, on St. Mary's Eve, in the 
church of St. Peter the Apostle at Olivolo. These virgins were 
styled "the Brides of Venice," and upon the auspicious day 
aforementioned the relatives and friends of the betrothed assem- 
bled on the island of Olivolo, laden with presents for the happy 
couples. During the reign of Pietro Sanudo 11. the corsairs of 
Trieste, who were acquainted with the annual custom, resolved 
to profit by the unarmed state of the joyful train and to ravish 
the " Brides of Venice." The pirates concealed themselves in 
an uninhabited portion of Olivolo, and when the bridal pro- 
cession had entered the church they quitted their hiding-place, 
forced their way into the church, tore the terrified maidens from 
the foot of the altar, bore them to their vessels, and set sail for 
Trieste. The Doge, followed by the injured lovers, summoned 
the people to arms, and gave chase in a few vessels belonging to 
the corporation of Trunk-Makers, who occupied a quarter in 
the parish of Santa Maria Formosa, and who offered their ships 
to the Doge and his companions. The pirates were overtaken 
and destroyed, and the " brides" were borne back in triumph to 
Olivolo, where great festivities celebrated their return. To 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 149 

commemorate this event, a solemn procession of young virgins, 
attended by the Doge and the clergy, paid a visit in each suc- 
ceeding year to the parish of Santa Maria Formosa, where thej^ 
were hospitably received by the Trunk-Makers. The heavy 
reverses which were terminated by the battle of Chioggia led to 
a discontinuation of the custom for a while, but it was after- 
wards renewed. 

Bridget or Bride, St. (450-521), patroness of Ireland, called 
also Thaumaturga, or the " wonder-worker." Her festival is 
celebrated on the reputed anniversary of her death, February 1. 
Born at Fouchard, in the county of Louth, the illegitimate 
child of an Irishman named Dulbach, she early took the veil 
at the hands of St. Mel, a disciple of St. Patrick, and retired 
into a cell at Kildare, — i.e., " the cell of the oak." Here she 
was soon joined by so numerous a community that she was 
compelled to separate the members into distinct bodies and to 
build nunneries for them in different parts of the country, all of 
which acknowledged her as their mother and foundress. To 
these scanty historical particulars legend has added a mass of 
fables. 

St. Bridget's body was interred at the church of Kildare, 
where her nuns for many years honored her memory by keeping 
a fire forever burning. Hence the church was known as the 
House of Fire, until in 1220 the Archbishop of Dublin, "to take 
away all occasion of superstition," ordered the fire to be extin- 
guished. Long before this the body had been translated to 
Downpatrick. Here, in 1185, it was found in a triple vault with 
the bodies of St. Patrick and St. Columba. The Pope's legate 
caused all these relics to be translated, in the presence of fifteen 
bishops and an immense concourse of clergy, nobilitj-, and people, 
to a more honorable place in the cathedral of Down. This was 
destroyed by Henry YIII. St. Bridget's head, however, was 
saved by some of the clergy and carried to Neustadt in Austria. 
In 1587 the Emperor Rudolf 11. gave it to the church of the 
Jesuits at Lisbon. 

Bruno, St., the founder of the Carthusian order of monks. 
His feast is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, October 
6 (1101). A member of the noble family of d'Hartenfaust, he 
was born at Cologne about 1035. Embracing the clerical life, he 
first became famous as the opponent of Manasses, who in 1067 
obtained the archbishopric of Rheims by simoniacal methods 
and whose fife had become a public scandal. At the Council 
held in Autun in 1077 he and two other canons openly accused 
the archbishop, who was suspended by the Papal legate, but 



150 CURIOSITIES OF 

for a period was able to defy the rulers of the Church and to 
drive his accusers from their homes. They took refuge in the 
castle of the Count de Eonci, where they remained until the 
following year. 

And now at length the indignation of the populace did what 
the rulers of the Church could not do, for in 1079 the people of 
Rheims drove the unworthy archbishop out of their city ; he 
retired to the court of the King of Germany, and died there 
outside the pale of the Church. 

It is according to the Carthusian tradition that Bruno, shortly 
after these events, was the witness of a miracle : this was nothing 
less than the resurrection of Raymond, a learned doctor of 
Paris, over whose body the funeral service was being read in the 
church of Notre-Dame. In the middle of the service, says the 
legend, Raymond rose upon the bier and called out, in terrifying 
tones, " I am justly accused," again, " I am judged," and again, 
" I am condemned." The tradition continues that Bruno was so 
profoundly impressed by this occurrence that he determined to 
spend the rest of his life in solitude, that he might by prayer 
and penance bring peace to his soul. The story was at one 
period widely believed, for it found a place in the Roman brev- 
iary, but it has not even that substratum of fact which the 
severest critic can discover in some alleged miracles of the 
Middle Ages; for a long time, indeed, the best ecclesiastical 
writers have rejected it, and Urban YIII. wisely expunged it 
from the breviary. In a letter of which the text has been pre- 
served, Bruno himself, writing to his friend Ralph le Yert, at 
that time Church-provost and subsequently Archbishop of 
Rheims, suggests a far simpler explanation of the whole matter: 
his own heart's longings were more powerful than the doctor 
and the miracle. 

In 1084 Bruno at last carried out the dream of his life, and 
with six companions founded his first oratory at Chartreuse, not 
far from the spot where the first great monastery of the order 
followed in 1137. This monastery, as well as those built to 
replace it in later times (several of which were destroyed by 
fire), has been known as La Grande Chartreuse, and has always 
been recognized by Carthusians as the mother-house of their 
order. Bruno himself died at another monastery which he 
founded at Calabria. His body is in the church of St. Stephen 
at Torre, but poriions of his bones have been distributed among 
different churches of the order. A part of his jaw, with two 
teeth, is at the Grande Chartreuse. 

In 1514, four centuries after Bruno's death. Pope Leo X. 
authorized the Carthusians to make use of a special office in 
honor of their founder; this was regarded as equivalent to 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 151 

beatification ; but Bruno was not canonized until 1623, during 
the pontificate of Gregory XY. 

The Carthusian is one of the austerest of monastic orders. 
The original rules as recorded by contemporaries enjoined abso- 
lute silence save on Sundays at dinner, and total abstinence from 
flesh meat, a rule not relaxed even in case of sickness. On 
Tuesdays and Saturdays they ate nothing but vegetables ; Mon- 
days, Thursdays, and Fridays, only brown bread. On Sundays 
and holidays they feasted on bread and cheese, and added fish 
if these were presented to them. Meagre as their meals were, 
they ate only once a day, save on Sundays and holidays. A 
hair shirt was worn next to the skin, and next to the hair shirt 
nothing save their white robes crowned with white hoods. 
Their whole heads are shaven. One custom is peculiar to the 
order. Once a week the coiivent gates are opened and all the 
solitaries go forth in twos for a walk among the mountains, 
through the forests, or over the flowery meadows. 

Buddha, Sacred Tooth of. There are no fewer than twelve 
dental relics of Gautama Buddha enshrined in India, and seven 
in China. Far the most famous of all is the one preserved in 
the Dalada Malagawa, or great temple of the Sacred Tooth, in 
Kandy, Ceylon. It is the aim of every good Buddhist to make 
a pilgrimage hither at least once in his lifetime. Innumerable 
Buddhist royalties have enriched the shrine with costly gifts. 
When the Portuguese occupied the island, the Eoman Catholic 
priests, recognizing what a centre of Buddhism the temple was, 
seized the sacred tooth and took it on board one of the Portu- 
guese ships, where it was placed in a mortar, pounded to dust 
by the Archbishop of Goa himself, and then cast into the river. 
But all without avail. The particles came together again, and 
next day the Buddhist priests found the relic, sound and whole 
as ever, reposing within a lotos-leaf. It was carefully replaced 
in the sanctuary of the temple, where it still remains. Only at 
rare intervals, when ready money becomes necessary for the 
sujoport of the many priests, is the relic exhibited. These occa- 
sions attract immense crowds of pilgrims. Generous donors are 
granted a prolonged stare, smaller donors are allowed to look 
and move on, while the rest, whose offerings are insignificant, 
but who are admitted on the principle that " mony a mickle 
maks a muckle," are hurried past. 

All that the visitor can do at ordinary times is to stare through 
an iron grating at a huge silver-gilt bell-shaped shrine. This 
encloses six other shrines of pure gold of decreasing sizes, one 
placed within the other. Each is full of jewels and idols. The 
last and smallest contains the sacred tooth. Burrows describes 



152 CURIOSITIES OF 

the latter as an " oblong piece of discolored ivory, tapering to 
a point, and about one and one-fourth inches in length, "and 
half an inch in diameter at the base. It is not in the least 
like a human tooth, and more resembles that of a crocodile or 
large pig." 

Bunker Hill Day, also known jocularly and colloquially as 
Boston's Fourth of July. The anniversary of the battle of 
Bunker Hill (fought on June 17, 1775), which is celebrated with 
great pomp throughout Massachusetts. In Boston itself the 
centre of the commemoration is the monument on Bunker Hill. 

It is only necessary briefly to sum up the story of the battle. 
Enough that the yeomanry of Charlestown and the Boston sub- 
urbs took up their position within a rough extemporized fortifica- 
tion on Bunker Hill, in defiance of the British army ; that at 
one o'clock of the afternoon of June 17 the red-coats landed in 
good order at Moulton's Point, and immediately formed in three 
lines, while the barges returned to Boston for more troops, who 
arrived at three ; that the British, some three thousand strong, 
advanced upon the American works ; that they were driven back 
with fearful slaughter ; that they advanced again, with the flames 
of the burning town to veil their movements, and were again 
repulsed ; that they rallied again with reinforcements against the 
Americans, who were not only worn down with labor and fasting, 
but out of ammunition ; and at about five o'clock, after this 
bloody conflict of an hour and a half with raw volunteers, these 
picked soldiers of the British army took possession of the hill, 
with more than a thousand dead and wounded as the price of 
their victory, among these two hundred and twenty-six being 
among the killed. The Americans had one hundred and forty 
killed, two hundred and seventy-one wounded, and thirty cap- 
tured, or four hundred and forty-one in all, in a force probably 
not exceeding fifteen hundred men actually engaged. The 
British had less than four thousand men engaged on the field, 
according to Eichard Frothingham's excellent history of the 
battle, but he apparently does not include the sailors and gunners 
in the British ships who were so active in the fight, and who 
killed the first American in the fort. 

In 1794 the Freemasons of Charlestown built a monument of 
brick and wood, twenty five feet high, upon the summit of the 
hill. This was replaced in 1825, the semi-centennial of the battle, 
by a massive obelisk two hundred and twenty-one feet high and 
thirty feet square, the corner-stone being laid on Bunker Hill 
Day in that year amid a concourse of fifty thousand people. The 
presence of La Fayette as the guest of the occasion and of 
Daniel Webster as its orator made this one of the great events 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



153 



in American civic history. Webster's oration (together with the 
oration that he delivered on Bunker Hill Day in 1843) is ranked 
among his most masterly performances, and would alone serve to 
immortalize the occasion. The centennial jubilee of the battle 
was another memorable event, celebrated June 17, 1875, at 
which Judge Charles Devens deHvered a notable address. 

Burns Festival. A celebration in honor of the birthday 
(January 25) of Eobert Burns (1759-1796), the great lyric poet 



^MMM&^MM^^^^ ^^ ^^&;^&i&&^^ ^^^ 







Programme op the Burns Festival, 1896. 
(Designed by John Leighton, F.S.A.) 



of Scotland, is annually held in most of the large Scotch cities, 
but especially at his native city of Ayr. Blackwood's Magazine 



154 CURIOSITIES OF 

for September, 1844, gives a long account of the earliest celebra- 
tion of this sort. 

It is curious to note that Burns himself had jocularly antici- 
pated this. In a letter to his early patron Gavin Hamilton in 
1786 he says, " For my own affairs I am in a fair way of becoming 
as eminent as Thomas a Kempis or John Bunyan, and you may 
expect henceforth to see my birthday inscribed among the won- 
derful events in the Poor Eobin and Aberdeen Almanacks, along 
with the Black-Monday and the Battle of Bothwell Bridge." 
But even in his most burlesque mood he could not have exag- 
gerated the interest which greeted the centennial anniversary 
of his birth in 1859, when celebrations were held not only in 
every town in Scotland, but wherever English is spoken, — in the 
United States, in Canada, in Victoria, in Calcutta, in Hong-Kong, 
in Natal. He could not even as a joke have anticipated that a 
great festival would be held at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, 
nor that a perfect flood of Burnsiana should have inundated the 
literary world. The centenary of his death was celebrated with 
equal pomp on July 20, 1896. 

Butchers' Leap. (Ger. Metzgersprung.) A festival cele- 
brated once every three years by the butchers of Munich on 
Fasching Montag (the Monday before Lent), in commemoration 
of the manner in which their predecessors aided the coopers 
(see Coopers' Dance) in suppressing the after-effects of the 
plague of 1517. This was simply by leaping into the public 
fountain, to prove to the people that the water was harmless. 

The butchers begin the day by attending high mass at St. 
Peter's Church, close to the Marienplatz, where the fountain is 
situated. Then they form themselves into solemn procession. 
First come the musicians, on foot, followed b}'- a baker's dozen 
of chubby boys, sons of the master butchers, ranging in age from 
four to six years, elaborately tricked out in green and scarlet, 
and mounted on their fathers' great dray-horses, whose bridles 
are held by the fathers themselves, the latter in dress-coats and 
white gloves, carrying enormous bouquets in their hands. Then 
ride ten butchers' apprentices (the leapersof the day), in scarlet 
jackets and green hats, followed by another detachment of 
master-butchers, on foot. Last of all walk two men in scarlet 
jackets and flower-adorned hats, bearing aloft on their shoulders 
two huge silver flagons, hung over with large silver medals, coins, 
and chains. These flagons are of great antiquity and belong to 
the butchers' guild. In this manner the j^rocession marches in 
succession to the various royal palaces. Entering at each, they 
present bouquets and tender a loving-cup to be passed around 
among the princes and their families. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 155 

By four o'clock in the afternoon the round of royalty has 
been made, and everything is ready for the Leap. The ten 
apprentices, their scarlet and gold exchanged for sheepskin gar- 
ments all hung over with party-colored calves' tails, range them- 
selves round the stone edge of the fountain, ready for the plunge. 
A master-butcher puts them through a series of questions : as to 
what they want ; if they know what an honor it is to belong to 
the ancient, most loyal and honorable guild of butchers ; if they 
are ready and willing to prove their courage and show them- 
selves worthy of the privilege they ask, etc. ; to all of which 
they answer in proper formula. Then a basket containing wine 
and a number of small glasses is brought, and the master-butcher, 
having filled a glass for each of the shaggy apprentices and one 
for himself, tells them to drink to the health of H. E. H. the 
Prince Eegent. A loud " Z/ebe hoch r rings out ; the eleven 
glasses are emptied at the same moment, and thrown into the 
fountain. More than fifty times this toasting is repeated (for- 
tunately the glasses are very small, and the wine not of the 
strongest quaHty), until the health of every member of the royal 
family of Bavaria, young and old, is drunk, besides that of the 
ministers, mayors, and principal authorities of Munich. 

Then the master-butcher, giving the nearest apprentice a 
sounding blow on the shoulder, tells him and his companions to 
do their duty; which they d© by jumping, all ten, into the foun- 
tain, at the same time, with a tremendous splash, and there 
floundering about. Several baskets of apples and nuts are 
emptied out into the small space round the fountain, which has 
been kept clear by the police and soldiers from the invasion of 
the crowd. 

Then begins the tug of war. The youngsters in the crowd 
commence pushing and squeezing themselves through, scram- 
bling and fighting for the apples and nuts, while the ten monsters 
in the fountain, catching up the little blue-and white buckets 
there ready to hand, dash the water with a will over the shriek- 
ing urchins, who, fleeing one moment before the deluge, return 
the next, impelled by their overwhelming desire for the apples 
and nuts, only to rush screaming away again as another drench- 
ing shower greets their hardihood. 

After this has continued about ten or fifteen minutes, and 
the apace round the fountain is converted into a lake on which 
floats the debris of the apples and nuts, the newly-made but- 
chers come out of their bath, dripping like so many water- 
dogs; a white cloth is tied round their necks, over which are 
hung a quantity of silver medals as reward for their prowess, 
and the Metzgersprung is over. {Catholic World, December, 1896, 
p. 313.) 



156 CURIOSITIES OF 

Butchers' Serenade. A sort of London Charivari (pace Mr. 
Punch) anciently performed by the metropolitan butchers. These 
made a point of attending in front of the house where a marriage 
party was in progress. Each had a cleaver and a marrow-bone, 
and by striking these instruments together they produced a rude 
sort of music which was expected to draw forth gratuities from 
the wedding guests. The group sometimes consisted of four, but 
eight was considered the right complement. The cleaver of each 
being ground to the production of a single note, a full band pro- 
duced a complete octave, and if well trained the effect was not 
unlike that of a peal of bells. When this serenade occurred in 
the evening the men would be dressed in clean blue aprons and 
w^ear an enormous wedding favor of white paper in their hats. 
The men of Clare Market were reputed to be the best performers. 
It cannot be added that the appearance of the serenaders was 
always hailed with joy by the serenaded, but it was the delight 
of the street-boys, who frequently joined in the music with tin 
canisters filled with pebbles. Hogarth in the Marriage of the 
Industrious Apprentice preserves what was no unusual spectacle 
in his time, the arrival of the butcher serenaders, who in the 
exercise of their ancient right push aside the legitimate musicians 
that had been engaged for the occasion. Such affrays frequently 
led to broken heads and the intervention of the police. (See 
Charivari.) 

Byzant, Bezant, Besant, or Byzantine. A coin of pure 
gold, so named from having been first struck at Byzantium 
(Constantinople) in the reign of the Emperor Constantine the 
Great. These coins, or the gold circles representing them (for 
they sometimes bore no impression), were introduced into Eu- 
rope by the Crusaders, and became current from the ninth cen- 
tury downward. In England they continued to circulate till 
they were superseded by the noble of Edward III. (1327-1347), 
and varied in value from fifteen pounds, when first introduced, 
down to a sovereign, and finally to nine shillings four and one- 
half pence. Owing to the association of the byzant with the 
Crusades, — it was the coin in which the higher class of soldiers 
that bore the cross were paid, — it acquired a sort of sacred 
character. This accounts for the frequency of its appearance on 
heraldic shields. Three byzants became the badge of the Medici 
family, and were thence adopted as the national arms of Lom- 
bardy. The Lombards became the first bankers or professional 
money-lenders in England, and hence we have the three byzants 
or balls now emploj^ed as the sign for a pawnbroker. The offer- 
ing of gold made by the English sovereigns at the altar on re- 
ceiving communion, and, on other occasions, was called their 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 157 

byzant, and amounted to fifteen pounds ; and this sum the mon- 
arch continued to present down to 1752. Sometimes, in a more 
generous or penitent mood, his offering was a wedge of gold of 
the vahie of thirty pounds. In the historical chronicle of the 
Gentleman's Magazine for January 1, 1752, we find the following : 
" Was a great court at St. James's to compliment his Majesty 
and the royal family, but, on account of the mourning for the 
Queen of Denmark (his Majestie's daughter), his Majesty did 
not go to the royal chapel to offer the byzant." Camden, in his 
"Eemains," article "Money," says that "a great piece of gold 
valued at fifteen pounds, which the King offereth on high festival 
days, is yec called a Byzantine, which was anciently a piece of 
money coined by the Emperors of Constantinople ; but after- 
wards there were two, purposely made for the king and queen, 
with the resemblance of the Trinity, inscribed, 'J/i honorein 
Sanctce Trinitatis,' and on the other side a figure of the Virgin 
Marj', with the inscription, ' In honorem Sanctw Marice Virginis.' " 
Byzants of this character continued to be used till the first year 
of James I., who had new coins cast — one for the king and one 
for the queen — with different inscriptions. A writer in 1779 
says, " It is a very common idea (though not at the present 
strictly true) that our kings offer on New Year s Day a byzant, 
or wedge of gold. Whatever may have been the ancient cus- 
tom, the present royal offering, whenever the king communi- 
cates at the altar, is five guineas." He adds, " There is no offer- 
ing on New Year's Day, but that made for the king by the lord 
chamberlain on Twelfth Day is a box containing three purses, 
wherein are separately contained leaf-gold, frankincense, and 
myrrh, in imitation of the offerings of the Magi." The latter 
custom is still kept up by the British sovereign on the feast of 
the Epiphany {q. v.). 

The town of Shaftesbury, in Dorsetshire, England, stands upon 
the brow of a lofty hill, and till a comparatively recent period 
its inhabitants had to depend for their water-supply on the little 
village of Enmore G-reen, which lies below it in the valley. 
Now, the burgesses of Shaftesbury w^ere frequently in the habit 
of paying the lord of the manor of Enmore a stated sum 
annually — not improbably an actual byzant — for the water- 
privilege conceded them. But in process of time the byzant 
became commuted into a different form, viz., into that of a 
" trophy," the presentation of which constituted a formal ac- 
knowledgment of obligation and indebtedness yearly made by 
the mayor and town council of Shaftesbury to the lord of En- 
more. On the morning of each Kogation Monday the town 
authorities, leading burgesses, etc., went in solemn state and 
procession to Enmore Green, where they were met by the 



158 CURIOSITIES OF 

steward of the manor. The mayor then formally presented the 
"trophy" to him, along with a calf's head (uncooked), a gallon 
of ale, two penny loaves, and a pair of gloves edged with gold 
lace, craving, at the same time, permission to use the wells as 
of old times. The steward, like a prudent man, retained the 
comestibles, ale, and gloves, but returned the " trophy" to the 
good people of Shaftesbury. Leave was granted to use the 
wells, and the ceremony, of course, wound up with a dinner. 

The "trophy," or byzant, which gave name to the festival, w^as 
constructed of ribbons and peacock feathers, attached to a large 
wooden frame, around which were hung jew^els, coins, and 
medals, lent for the occasion by the gentry of the districts. 
From a quotation in Brand's " Popular Antiquities," s.v. "Paro- 
chial Perambulations in Eogation Week," it would seem that the 
trophy was anciently called the Prize Besom (or Broom) ; and it 
may be that Bezant in this connection is a corruption of Besom. 

Latterly the festival degenerated, and, on the town falling 
into the hands of the Superior of Enmore in 1830 and being 
consolidated therewith, the ceremony was discontinued. 



Cader Idris. (Welsh, " Chair of Idris.") Tennyson refers 
to this chair in " Geraint and Enid :" 

And when Geraint 
Beheld her first in field, awaiting him, 
He felt, were she the prize of bodily force, 
Himself beyond the rest pushing could move 
The chair of Idris. 

On the summit of Cader Idris, a mountain-peak in Merioneth- 
shire, Wales, there is a hollow, couch-like excavation, and this is 
called the " Chair of Idris." The mountain is situated in what 
was supposed to have been King Arthur's territory. It was a 
tradition among the Welsh bards that whoever should pass the 
night upon this seat would be found the next morning either 
dead, mad, or endowed with supernatural powers. This tradi- 
tion is alluded to in Mrs. Hemans's poem " The Eock of Cader- 
Idris." 

Idris figures in Welsh tradition as a prince, a magician, and an 
astronomer. All authorities agree, however, upon his giant-like 
proportions. In the " Lake of the Three Pebbles" near the base 
of the mountain are three large blocks of stone which the giant 
is said to have shaken out of one of his boots. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 159 

Calendar. (From the Latin word Kalendce, or '' Calends.") 
The standard by which aggregations of human beings agree to 
measure the years, months, and days. Every Protestant and 
Eoman Catholic nation now accepts what is known as the Gre- 
gorian calendar, the most nearly accurate ever devised by the 
wit of man. Japan has recently followed suit. But the Greek 
Church adheres to the Julian calendar, and the Jews, Moham- 
medans, and Chinese have each a different calendar, which will 
be considered in turn. 

As every one knows, the earth revolves round its axis, and 
also travels round the sun, the one revolution causing the alter- 
nation of day and night, the other that of the seasons. From 
the earliest times men have made use of both these series of 
changes as a means of reckoning time, and had there been a 
simple numerical relation between them there need never have 
been any trouble. 

Unfortunately this is not the case. The number of revolu- 
tions which the earth makes when it goes once round the sun, 
instead of being a whole number, is a number and a fraction ; 
or, in other words, the earth goes round the sun in three hun- 
dred and sixty-five days, five hours, forty-eight minutes, and forty- 
six seconds, or 365.2422 days. This was not discovered in a day. 
Various guesses were made at the proper length of the year, and 
calendars were drawn up in accordance with them. 

The primeval system of reckoning time was based on the 
moon's changes, as is shown in our word " month." By the 
ruling of the moon months were reckoned with either twenty- 
nine or thirty days. Soon the recurrence of the seasons sug- 
gested the year. But now great difiiculty was experienced in 
fitting the right number of days into a month, and the right 
number of months into a year. One of the earliest means de- 
vised was that in use among the Egyptians. By their arrange- 
ment the year was made up of the seasons, and included three 
hundred and sixty-five days, with twelve months of thirty days 
each. To fill out the lack arising from this system of months, 
five supplementary days were added at the end of the year. 

The Jews reckoned their year as composed of twelve lunar 
months of twenty-nine and thirty days alternately, and the re- 
sulting discrepancy was relieved by the occasional introduction 
of a thirteenth month. The Syrians, Macedonians, and kindred 
peoples generally followed the Jewish method. In pursuing 
this reckoning seven years in a cycle of nineteen have this inter- 
calary month, and the number of days in any year varies from 
three hundred and fifty-three to three hundred and eighty-five. 

The ancient Greeks made their year to consist of twelve really 
lunar months, but Solon in 594 B.C. made a law for the Athenians 



160 CURIOSITIES OF 

that the months should comprise twenty-nine and thirty days, with 
the addition of an intercalary period occasionally. Afterwards 
three times in eight years a month of thirty days was added, by 
which means the average length of each year was made to be three 
hundred and sixty-four and one-fourth days. Ancient Eome had 
but ten months in the year, but in the time of its kings the lunar 
year was introduced, numbering three hundred and fifty-five days 
in the twelve months, an occasional intercalary month being em- 
ployed to make the necessary rectification. The whole matter 
was left to the College of the Pontifices, or priests who super- 
intended the state rehgion. Theirs was the duty to watch the 
seasons and ^ee when an intercalation was needed, and thus 
keep the year balanced. Unfortunately, the Pontifices were poli- 
ticians first and priests afterwards. Their judgment as to the 
necessity of intercalation was governed largely by the considera- 
tion whether to lengthen or shorten the year would accommodate 
a friend or gratify a grudge. At last the year was so thoroughly 
out of joint that Cicero speaks of being delayed by the equinoc- 
tial storm in October. 

This was the condition of things when Caesar, being Pontifex 
Maximus and thus having the official direction of the calendar, 
undertook a permanent reform. He consulted with Sosigenea, an 
Egyptian astronomer. Basing his calculations upon the assump- 
tion that the year is just three hundred and sixty -five days and 
six hours long, he provided three years of three hundred and 
sixty-five days followed by one of three hundred and sixty-six. 
(See Leap- Year.) If the earth had any respect for round num- 
bers, this arrangement would have been unimpeachable. But in 
point of fact its solar revolution is performed in just about eleven 
minutes less time than Caesar had imagined. Consequently the 
Julian calendar made the year eleven minutes too long, the error 
amounting to a day in one hundred and twenty-eight years. In 
the course of the centuries the equinox gradually receded towards 
the beginning of the year. 

Now, the equinox was an important date in the Catholic 
Church. The Council of Mce, which had assembled in 325 a.d,, 
ordered, among other matters, that Easter should be celebrated 
on the first Sunday after the full moon next following the vernal 
equinox. This was a guide to other Church festivals. Advent 
Sunday, Ascension Day, Whitsuntide, Trinity Sunday, the forty 
days of Lent, the Ember days, the Eogation days, and others, 
depended upon Easter. They had become, in the course of ages, 
fasts and festivals intermingled with the daily concerns of life. 
Planting and harvesting, dairy -work and sheep-shearing, felling 
of timber and salving of kine, brewing ale, preparing conserves, 
curing meats, housing garden-stufi's, distilling domestic spirits, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 161 

and drying medicinal herbs grew during tbe Dark Ages into 
superstitious connection with certain holy days. But as every 
revolving year failed to bring the earth quite back to the same 
point in the ecliptic, the sun that warmed, the stars that were 
supposed to vivify, and the elements that nourished the sown 
seed grew slack in their work. The value of old traditions 
decreased. Calculations failed. Farmers believed the seasons 
to be changing. In the fifteenth century nine days of variation 
had taken place, and the gap was constantly widening. 

At last Pope Gregory XIII. effected a new reformation of the 
calendar, in a bull dated March 1, 1582. 

To restore the civil year to a correspondence with the astro- 
nomical, he ordered that the 5th of October, 1582, should be 
called the 15th. To prevent the intrusion of the same errors in 
the measurement of time in future ages, and to secure the re- 
currence of the festivals of the Church at the same period of 
the year, he further decreed that every year whose number is 
not divisible by four shall consist of three hundred and sixty- 
five days ; every year which is so divisible, but not divisible by 
one hundred, of three hundred and sixty-six days; every year 
divisible by one hundred, but not by four hundred, of three 
hundred and sixty-five ; and every year divisible by four hun- 
dred, of three hundred and sixty-six. A more perfect corre- 
spondence of the civil and astronomical years will probably 
never be obtained. In the preparation of this rule every source 
of disagreement is estimated, and as far as possible corrected. 
The allowance of an extra day every fourth year is indeed a 
small excess ; but this is not allowed to accumulate, for at the 
commencement of every century the centennial year is not to 
consist of three hundred and sixty-six days, or, in other words, 
is not to be counted a leap-year, unless its number can be divided 
by four hundred. Thus, the year 1600 was a leap-year, and the 
year 2000 will be the same ; but the years 1700 and 1800 con- 
tained, and the year 1900 will contain, only three hundred and 
sixty-five days. 

Pope Gregory's correction gives an average year of 365.2425 
days, or twenty-six seconds longer than the true year. These 
odd seconds will amount to a whole year in 3323 years, and 
it has been proposed to allow for this error by providing 
that the year 4000 and all its multiples shall be common years. 
But this would be pedantic foresight, and it is unnecessary to 
discuss the question whether the year 4000 ought or ought not 
to be a leap-year. In ages yet to come, when the friction of the 
tides shall have so retarded the rotation of the earth that three 
hundred and sixty-five days will make a year, leap-years will be 
unnecessary. But that is a still remoter contingency, and in the 

11 



162 CURIOSITIES OF 

mean time Pope Gregory's calendar is likely to remain in its 
present form. 

And now an extraordinary bit of bigotry must be recorded. 
The Gregorian calendar, exacted by necessity, founded upon 
science, recommended by common sense, and universal in benefit, 
was at first accepted only in Catholic countries. In the Protes- 
tant states of Germany the Julian calendar was retained until 
1700, and the Gregorian in its entirety was not received until 
1774. In Denmark and Sweden the reformed calendar was 
accepted in 1700. Scotland adopted it in 1600. But England 
held out until 1751. It was then enacted that eleven days should 
be omitted after the 2d of September, 1752, so that the ensuing- 
day should be the 14th. The enactment was not carried out 
without bitter popular opposition. Many honest Protestants 
imagined that they were defrauded by some Papistical or devilish 
ingenuity of the days omitted Irom the calendar. " Give us 
back our eleven days," was a cry with which many an unpopular 
statesman was greeted. Kussia, Greece, and the smaller states, 
such as Servia, belonging to the Greek Church, are the only 
countries now adhering to the Julian calendar, which is known 
as Old Style, frequently abbreviated to O. S., while the Gregorian 
is New Style, or N. S. " 

At present — since 1800 was a leap-year according to Old 
Stjde and a common year according to New Style — there is a 
difference of twelve days between the styles. The resultant 
inconveniences in Eussia and Greece are very great. Letters to 
foreign countries, orders for shipments, times of departure for 
steamers and sailing-vessels, news from abroad, advertisements 
of the holding of international fairs, and one knows not what 
besides, must all bear two dates, — Old Style and New. The 
mariner cannot read the nautical almanac, nor the merchant 
accept a draft from abroad, nor the broker determine foreign 
exchanges, without having two dates at hand. Advices cannot 
be understood, bills of lading cannot be made effective, telegrams 
cannot be comprehended, without an extra labor, small in each 
instance, but large in the aggregate, which the Julian calendar 
in Russia imposes. "Does he mean Old Style or New?" is a 
question asked in St. Petersburg and Moscow thousands of times 
in a day. 

The calendar underwent some fantastic changes at the time 
of the French Revolution. The Convention charged its Com- 
mittee of Public Instruction to mark the new era on which 
France seemed to be entering by creating a new calendar, which 
should be purely civil. The excuse was that it had degenerated 
into a sort of record of saints' days and served chiefly to mark 
the festivals of the Catholic Church. The new system was 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 163 

presented and adopted in the autumn of 1793, or just at the 
period of the Terror, with the exception of the names of the 
months, which as first reported by the committee bore such 
fantastic names as Jeu de Paume (" ball-playing"), Niveau 
("level"), Bastile, Bonnet, Pique ("pike"), etc. The Assembly 
preferred to call the months first, second, third, etc., after the 
present manner of the Quakers. The weeks, which represented 
no natural divisions of time, but served only to perpetuate tlie 
superstitions of ancient, astrologers, were suppressed, and the 
month was divided into three decades or fractions of ten days 
each. The year was divided into twelve months of thirty daj^s 
each, and kept in its proper relation to the seasons by five days 
added in ordinary years and six every leap-year. It was pro- 
posed that the days should be divided into ten parts, a change 
that could not be conveniently made at the moment, since it 
would have rendered necessary the entire remodelling of every 
clock in France. The new system, being dated backward, went 
into operation on September^ 22, 1792, which was the year 1 of 
the new epoch, but the first year was only three months long, 
the second beginning on January 1, 1793. Great inconvenience 
resulted immediately from its practical use. For instance, it 
was found necessary to employ such phrases as the following : 
" The first day of the first decade of the first month of the first 
year of the republic," for which it appeared that life was far too 
brief, especially when the Terror was beL!:inning to count its 
victims by the thousand. So the poet Fabre d' Eglantine was 
charged with the task of finding more suitable names for the 
months and days. The system of the new almanac-maker was 
based on nature itself, — that is, nature as seen in the north of 
France, — and it was intended to serve as a manual of labor and 
rural instruction for the present. 

Here is the calendar as reformed on this educational basis : 

Vendemiaire (Vintage), September 22 to October 21. 
Brumaire (Eoggy), October 22 to November 20. 
Frimaire (Sleety), November 21 to December 20. 
Nivose (Snowy), December 21 to January 19. 
Pluviose (Kainy), January 20 to February 18. 
Ventose (Windy), February 19 to March 20. 
Germinal (Budding), March 21 to April 19. 
Floreal (Flowery), April 20 to May 19. 
Prairial (Pasture), May 20 to June 18. 
Messidor (Harvest), June 19 to Julv 18. 
Thermidor (Heat), July 19 to August 17. 
Fructidor (Fruit), August 18 to September 16. 

The system of the decade was not changed, but each day 
received a name according to its number, as Primidi (" first 



164 CURIOSITIES OF 

day"), Duodi (" second day"), etc. One extra day was called 
Sans-Culottides, to honor the new aristocracy of the common 
people. They formed half a decade of festal days in which 
Virtue, Genius, Labor, Opinion, and Eewards were to be cele- 
brated. Nothing can give an idea better than this almanac of 
the peculiarly unpractical character of the French of that epoch 
called upon to govern so suddenly after so many ages of abso- 
lute servitude. This republican almanac was in use until the year 
1806, — that is, nearly twelve years and three months, — when 
Bonaparte, partly as a compliment to the Papal court, which he 
desired to conciliate, put an end to it and restored the Gregorian 
calendar. The change was accomplished in the form of a law 
proposed to the senate by the government orators, and had the 
effect of replacing things just where they were at the beginning 
of 1793. This event occurred in the month Nivose of the so- 
called year 14, which had lasted but one hundred days, as the 
year 1 had had an existence of but three months. Such an 
absurdit}' as this eifort to revolutionize the almanac can never 
occur again, the inconvenience of a special calendar for a single 
nation being recognized. 

To Auguste Comte we owe the pregnant idea of a calendar for 
the race, in which every day should recall to us the name of a 
predecessor memorable in some one of the varied departments 
of human activity, the whole forming a record of our progress 
towards civilization intended to rouse gratitude and stimulate 
effort. 

The Jewish calendar is dated from the creation, which is con- 
sidered to have taken place 3750 years and 3 months before the 
commencement of the Christian era. The year is luni-solar, and 
may be ordinary or embolismic. An ordinary year has twelve 
lunar months, each of twenty -nine or thirty days ; an em- 
bolismic year has thirteen. Thus, the duration of the ordinary 
year is three hundred and fifty-four days, and that of the em- 
bolismic is three hundred and eighty-four days. In either case 
it is sometimes made a day more or a day less in order that cer- 
tain festivals may fall upon proper days of the week for their 
due observance. The names of the months are Tisri, Hesvan, 
Kislev, Tebet, Sebat, Adar (with Yeadar in embolismic years), 
Msan, Yiar, Sivan, Tamuz, Ab, Elul. The New Year, 1st Tisri, 
occurs anywhere between September 5 and October 5 of our 
computation. 

The Mohammedan calendar is dated from the flight of Mo- 
hammed from Mecca to Medina, which was in the night of Jul}" 
15-16, 622. The years always consist of twelve lunar months. 
They are partitioned into cycles of thirty years, nineteen of 
which are common years of three hundred and fifty-four days 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 165 

each ; the other eleven are intercalary years having an addi- 
tional day appended to the last month. The mean length of ihe 
year is therefore three hundred and fifty-four days, eight hours, 
and forty-eight minutes. No attempt is made to square the 
calendar with the astronomical year, so that the months retro- 
grade through all the seasons in about thirty-two and one-half 
years. The first day of Muharram is New Year, but it may of 
course occur in midwinter or in midsummer or at any inter- 
vening period. 

The Hindoo year began with the new moon preceding the 
beginning of the solar year, and when two lunar months began 
within the same solar month the first one was intercalated. If 
no lunar month began in a particular solar month, the year lost 
an ordinary month, but two intermediate months were added. 
Each Hindoo month had a particular name, and the new moons 
served to fix the beginnings of the months and years. The 
Hindoo years began with zero,^ the first year counting as 0, the 
second as 1, and so on. These were arranged in cycles of sixty 
years. The Hindoos reckoned their time by " ages," and these 
were divided into periods. The first age, sometimes called the 
age of gold and sometimes the age of innocence, was supposed 
to be 1,728,000 years ; the second age, an age of silver, 1,296,000 
years ; the third age, 864,000 years. The present age is the Kali 
yuga, or the age of iron ; only 4985 years of it have passed, but 
its total duration is supposed to be 432,000 years. 

Some idea of the enormous length of the Hindoo calendar can 
be gained from the following. The length of a patriarchate is 
seventy-one maha vugas, or 306,720,000 years, to which is added 
a twilight period of 1,728,000 years, making in all 308,448,000 
years. Fourteen of these patriarchates, augmented by a dawn 
of 1,728,000 years, give 4,320,000,000 years, which form a Kalpa, 
or the seon of Hindoo chronology. Now, a Kalpa is only a day 
in the life of Brahma, whose nights are also of the same dura- 
tion. Brahma lives a hundred years of three hundred and sixty 
days and three hundred and sixty nights. Accordingly it is 
figured that the present epoch is the Kali yuga of the twenty- 
seventh grand age of the seventh patriarchate of the first seon 
of the second half of the life of Brahma, who is now in his 
155,521,972,848,985th spring. But we should remember that the 
whole life of Brahma is only a little longer than a single wink 
of the great god Siva's eye! 

The Chinese civil year is regulated by the moon, and from the 
time of the Han dynasty, two centuries before Christ, has begun 
with the first day of that moon, during the course of which the 
sun enters their sign of the zodiac corresponding to our sign 
Pisces. They have also an astronomical year which is solar, 



1G6 CURIOSITIES OF 

and for the adjustment of these solar and lunar years employ a 
system similar to our leap-year plan, except that instead of an 
intercalary day every fourth year, as in the Gregorian calendar, 
they insert an intercalary month occurring alternately every 
third and second year in periods of nineteen. The year, there- 
fore, contains thirteen or twelve months according as it has or 
has not an intercalary one. A month has either twenty-nine or 
thirty days, the number of days being intended to correspond to 
the number of days which the moon takes to make the revolu- 
tion around the earth. A months indeed, means one moon^ the 
same Chinese character being used to indicate both. So, too, the 
number used to indicate the age of the moon at any time denotes 
also the day of the month ; thus, there is always a full moon on 
the 15th, no moon on the 1st, etc. Consequently the moon al- 
ways presents the same appearance on the same day in any 
month from year to year. This plan is particularly convenient 
for farmers and sailors, whose memory is thus materially assisted 
in remembering the changes of moon and tides. The era used 
by the Chinese in their histories is, next to that of the Jews, the 
oldest employed by any nation, as for over four thousand years 
they have for chronological purposes made use of a series of 
dail}', monthly, and yearly cycles of sixty. Each day, month, 
and year has its own name in its cycle, and by compounding 
these names a single one is made to express the date employed. 
A new cjX'le began in 1864, But the common events of every- 
day life among the Chinese have during these last twenty cen- 
turies been dated from the year of the accession of the reign- 
ing emperor. Some particular name, usually that of the new 
sovereign, is given by official proclamation to each reign, the 
years being numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. A record of these eras is 
kept, called a Catalogue of the Nienh-hao. 

Candle, Sale by. An old method of conducting an auction, 
which has its most frequent survival in France. In sales of im- 
portance the affair is placed in the hands of a notary, who for 
the time being becomes an auctioneer. The auctioneer is pro- 
vided with a number of small wax tapers, each capable of burn- 
ing about five minutes. As soon as a bid is made, one of these 
tapers is placed in full view of all interested parties and lighted. 
If before the flame expires another bid is offered, it is imme- 
diately extinguished and a fresh taper placed in its stead, and so 
on until one flickers and dies out of itself, when the last bid be- 
comes irrevocable. This simple plan prevents all contention 
among rival bidders, and affords a reasonable time for reflection 
before making a higher offer than the one preceding. By this 
means, too, the auctioneer is prevented from exercising undue 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 167 

influence upon the bidders or hastily accepting the bid of a 
favorite. 

The custom of selling by candle was once prevalent in Eng- 
land. Pepys refers in his Diary to this in the following extract 
(September 3, 1662) : " After dinner we met and sold the Way- 
mouth, Successe, and Fellowship hulks, when pleasant to see how 
backward men are at first to bid ; and yet, when the candle is 
going out, how they bawl and dispute afterwards who bid the 
most first. And here 1 observed one man eunninger than the 
rest, that was sure to bid the last man, and to carry it ; and in- 
quiring the reason, he told me that just as the flame goes out the 
smoke descends, which is a thing I never observed before; and 
by that he do know the instant when to bid last." 

A few local survivals of the custom in England are noted by 
Mr. Ditchfield : 

" At Aldermaston, Berks, land is let by means of a lighted 
candle. The villagers assemble in the schoolroom on the occa- 
sion of the letting of the ' Church Acre,' a piece of meadowland 
which was bequeathed some centuries ago to the vicar and 
churchwardens of the parish for the expenses of the church. 
The custom is as follows. A candle is lighted, and one inch 
below the flame is duly measured ofi", at which point a pin is in- 
serted. The bidding then commences, and continues till the 
inch of candle is consumed and the pin drops out. Every three 
years this ancient ceremony is performed. At Tatworth, near 
Chard, a sale by hghted candle takes place every year, and at 
Chedzoy the ' Church Acre' is let every twenty-one years by 
this means. The land belonging to the parish charities in the 
village of Corby, near Kettering, is let every eight years by the 
sale of candle, and the procedure is similar to that which has 
already- been described. Also in Warwickshire, where old cus- 
toms die hard, the grazing rights upon the roadside and on the 
common lands at Warton, near Polesworth, have been annually 
let by the same means. This custom has been observed since 
the time of George III., when an old Act of Parliament was 
passed directing that the herbage should be sold by candle-light, 
and that the last bidder when the flame had burned itself out 
should be the purchaser. The surveyor presides at the auction, 
and produces an old book containing the record of the annual 
lettings since the year 1815. An ordinary candle is then cut 
into five equal portions, about half an inch high, one for each 
lot." 

At Bremen a long-established custom was discontinued with 
the end of 1893. Every Friday afternoon, in a room in the old 
Exchange, a judge and his secretary took their seats, attended 
by a crier and a servant dressed in a flame-colored coat, and 



168 



CURIOSITIES OF 



supplied with a box of tiny matches, each of which was intended 
to burn for one minute. At a given signal a candle was lighted, 
and the bidding began. At each bid the burning candle was ex- 
tinguished and a new one lighted, and the property was dis- 
posed of only when the candle burned itself out before the 
receipt of a fresh bid had been announced by the crier. 

Candlemas Day, known also as The Purification of the 
Blessed Virgin, Christ's Presentation at The Temple, 
and colloquially in England as The Wives' Feast. A festival 




Candlemas Procession in Rome. 
(From Picart.) 

celebrated in the Anglican, Eoman, and Greek Churches on 
February 2. This, being the fortieth day after the birth of 
Christ, was the day on which, according to Levitical rules, the 
purification of the mother and the presentation of the son should 
occur. (See Churching of Women.) The institution of the 
festival is attributed to Pope Grelasius, in the latter part of the 
fifth century. In many of its details it shows itself to be a 
Christianization of the pagan Februalia celebrated in ancient 
Eome at about the same period. In fact, this is expressly 
acknowledged by Pope Innocent XTI. in the course of a sermon : 
" Why do we in this feast carry candles ? Because the Gentiles 



i 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 169 

dedicated the month of February to the infernal gods, and as at 
the beginning of it Pluto stole Proserpine, and her mother Ceres 
sought her in the night with lighted candles, so they, at the 
beginning of this month, walked about the city with lighted 
candles. Because the holy fathers could not extirpate this 
custom, they ordained that "Christians should carry about candles 
in honor of the Blessed Virgin ; and thus what was done before 
to the honor of Ceres is now done to the honor of the Yirgin." 
In the Eastern Church the festival was adopted by the Emperor 
Justinian in 542 under the name of 'TTranavrij, or "meeting," 
because Simeon and Anna the prophetess met in the temple at 
the presentation of Christ. (Luke ii.) The keynote of the 
festival in the Greek Church is formed by these words of Simeon 
addressed to the infant Christ, " A light to lighten the Gentiles, 
and the glory of thy people Israel." In the West the Yirgin 
came to be the most important figure of the day, and the words 
of Simeon, " Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul 
also," were taken to denote the first of her seven sorrows, which 
were often represented in a matter-of-fact way as seven swords 
in the heart of the Mater Dolorosa. 

The special services of the day among Eoman Catholics con- 
sist of a blessing of candles by the priests and a distribution of 
them to the congregation, by which they are afterwards carried 
lighted in solemn procession. 

Before the downfall of the Papacy, the Pope used to officiate 
at this festival in the chapel of the Quirinal. When he had 
blessed the candles he distributed them with his own hand 
among those in the church, each of whom, going singly up to 
him, knelt to receive it. The cardinals went first ; then followed 
bishops, canons, priors, abbots, priests, and others, down to the 
sacristans and humblest officers of the Church. Then the 
candles were lighted, the Pope was seated in his chair and 
carried in procession, with the, chanting of hymns, around the 
ante-chapel ; the throne was stripped of its splendid hangings, 
the Pope and cardinals took off their gold and crimson robes, 
and the usual mass of the morning was sung. 

It appears that in England, in Catholic times, a meaning was 
attached to the size of the candles and the manner in which 
they burned during the procession ; that, moreover, the reserved 
parts of the candles were deemed to possess a strong super- 
natural virtue. 

Candlemas in the Middle Ages was the favorite time for the 
ceremony among Christian mothers analogous to the Mosaic 
presentation in the temple. Hence came the custom of bear- 
ing candles for those services at other times of the year. In 
England, however, men were not particularly attentive to the 



170 CURIOSITIES OF 

pious custom, for it is recorded that " Men seldom offer candles 
at women's churcbynges saving our Ladle's, but reason it is that 
she have some pieferement ;" and, even though she did have 
some preferment, the English before the Eeformation were in- 
clined to find fault because they were not allowed to eat flesh 
every Saturday with joy and pardon in honor of the Virgin, as 
was done in Flanders, saying, " the Pope is not so good to us," 
and drawing the conclusion that there was as good reason for 
them to eat flesh with the Flemish " as that we shuld bear our 
Candel to her Churchinge at Candlemas with theym as they doe." 

With the Eeformation there came a reaction against the high 
honor paid the Virgin. John Bale in 1554 complained that it 
was a Eomish error '' to beare their Candels soberly and to offer 
them to the Saintes, not of God's makynge, but the Carvers and 
Paynters," and in the thirtieth year of his reign Henry VIII. 
issued a proclamation, saying, " On Candelmas Daye it shall be 
declared that the bearynge of Candels is done in the memorie of 
Christe, the spirituall lyghte whom Simeon dyd prophecye, as it 
is redde in the Churche that daye." This brought the festival 
back to the old Greek meaning. In the most ancient pictures 
and mosaics Simeon is the figure of importance, as the type of 
those who recognized and embraced the Messiah, and his song, 
the " Nunc Dimittis," furnished one of the names by which the 
day was known. 

On Candlemas Eve all Christmas greens must be taken down. 
Herrick has this little poem on the subject : 

A Ceremony upon Candlemas Eve. 

Down with the Eosemary, and so 
Down with the Baies and Mistletoe ; 
Down with the Holly, Ivie, all 
Wherewith ye drest the Christmas Hall ; 
That so the superstitious find 
Not one least hranch there left behind, 
For look, how many leaves there be 
Neglected there. Maids, trust to me, 
So many Goblins you shall see. 

He also alludes to the reservation of part of the candles or 
torches, as calculated to have the effect of protecting from 
mischief: 

Kindle the Christmas brand, and then 

Till sunset let it burn, 
Which quenched, then lay it up again, 
Till Christmas next return 

Part must be kept, wherewith to teend 

The Christmas log next year ; 
And where 'tis safely kept, the fiend 

Can do no mischief there. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 171 

Candlemas is everywhere a great day for weather prognos- 
tications. But these prognostications, like dreams, go by con- 
traries, fine weather on Candlemas foretelling a succession of un- 
seasonably cold days and necessarily a failure of the crops, while 
foul weather on that day is a sure promise of a bright spring, 
with a summer to match. Numerous popular rhymes in England 
and Scotland embody this superstition : 

If Candlemas Day be dry and fair, 
The half o' winter's to come and mair ; 
If Candlemas Day be wet and foul, 
The half o' winter's gane at Yule. 

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, 
Winter will have another flight ; 
But if it be dark with clouds and rain,_ 
Winter is gone, and will not come again. 

The hind had as lief see 

His wife on the bier 
As that Candlemas Day 

Should be pleasant and clear. 

" The Country Almanac" in 1676 came out with this version 
of the story : 

Foul weather is no news ; hail, rain, and snow 
Are now expected, and esteem 'd no woe ; 
Nay, 'tis an omen bad, the yeomen say. 
If Phoebus shows his face the second day. 

Though they expected foul weather, still the yeomen thought 
that by that time the worst of the winter was past, and they had 
the proverb, — 

When Candlemas Day is come and gone, 
The snow lies on a hot stone. 

In Germany there are two proverbial expressions on this sub- 
ject : " The shepherd would rather see the wolf enter his stable 
on Candlemas Day than the sun." " The badger peeps out of 
his hole on Candlemas Day, and when he finds snow walks 
abroad ; but if he sees the sun shining he draws back into his 
hole." 

The Germans have brought over with thera to America the 
superstition about the badger. But as the badger, even in its 
distinctly American variety, is little known east of the Missis- 
sippi Eiver, the fable has been transferred from its shoulders 
to those of the woodchuck, or ground-hog. Farmers in the 
(Middle States give the name of Ground-Hog Day to Candlemas. 
\l'hcy will tell you that it is the day whereon the ground-hog 
awakens from his hibernating slumber, stretches himself, and 



172 CURIOSITIES OF 

comes out of his hole to look for his shadow. If he finds it, — 
that is to say, if the sun be shining out of a clear sky so that 
the woodchuck casts a shadow, — he hurries back to his hole and 
to sleep again, knowing that it is but a temporary meteorological 
change, which must speedily be followed by a renewal of wintry 
severity. But if the sky be overcast and the sun obscured, and 
the day be cold and cheerless, and the ground-hog casts no 
shadow, then he exults and disports himself, and counts his 
slumbers at an end, for he knows that winter also is at its end. 

The following rhymes, common in the rural parts of New 
England, may be contrasted with the similar versified proverbs 
of Old England and Scotland, in regard to the prophetic quality 
of Candlemas weather : 

As far as the sun shines out on Candlemas Day, 
So far will the snow blow in before May ; 
As far as the snow blows in on Candlemas Day, 
So far will the sun shine out before May. 

The ground-hog was not the only medium to foretell the future 
on Candlemas. According to Martin, in his " Description of the 
Western Islands," the Hebrideans observed this custom : " The 
mistress and servants of each family take a sheaf of oats and 
dress it up in women's apparel, put it in a large basket, and lay 
a wooden club by it, and this they call ' Briid's Bed ;' and then 
the mistress and servants cry three times, ' Briid is come ! Briid 
is welcome!' This they do just before going to bed, and when 
they rise in the morning they look among the ashes, expecting 
to see the impression of Briid's club there, which if they do they 
reckon it a true presage of a good crop and prosperous year, 
and the contrary they take as a bad omen." Briid may be a 
corruption of Bridget, whose day occurs on the eve of Candlemas. 

There is a custom of old standing in Scotland in connection 
with Candlemas Day. On that day it is, or lately was, the uni- 
versal practice for children attending school to make small pres- 
ents of money to their teachers. The master sits at his desk or 
table, exchanging for the moment his usual authoritative look 
for one of bland civility, and each child goes up in turn and lays 
his ofi'ering before him, the sum being generally proportioned to 
the abilities of the parents. Sixpence and a shilling are the 
common sums in most schools, but some give half and whole 
crowns, and even more. The boy and girl who give most are re- 
spectively styled king and queen. The children being then dis- 
missed for a holiday proceed along the streets in a confused pro- 
cession, carrying the king and queen in state. In some schools 
it used to be customary for the teacher, on the conclusion of the 
offerings, to make a bowl, of punch and regale each urchin with 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 173 

a glass and a biscuit. The latter part of the day was usually 
devoted to what was called the Candlemas bleeze, or blaze, — 
namely, the burning of any piece of furze which might exist in 
their neighborhood. 

Another old custom in Scotland on Candlemas Day was to hold 
a foot-ball match. On one occasion, not long ago, when the 
sport took place in Jedburgh, the contending parties, after a 
struggle of two hours in the streets,, transferred the contention 
to the bed of the river Jed, and there fought it out amid a scene 
of fearful splash and dabblement, to the infinite amusement of a 
multitude looking on from the bridge. 

Candles, Use of. A candle (Lat. candeo, " I burn") was origi- 
nally made of wax, and wax candles are still used in the religious 
ceremonies of the Roman, English, and Greek Churches. An 
old legend of non-ecclesiastical origin asserts that bees derive 
their origin from Paradise, and are especially blessed by the 
Almighty; therefore mass ought not to be performed without 
the aid of the wax derived from these favored creatures. St. 
Luke (Acts xx. 7, 8) mentions the great number of lamps which 
burned in the upper chamber while St. Paul "continued his 
speech until midnight." The fact that Christian assemblies 
during the ages of persecution were held before dawn made a 
similar employment of lights necessary. Moreover, the early 
Christians, familiar as they were with the Old Testament sym- 
bolism, in connection with the candlestick in the tabernacle and 
the temple, doubtless attached similar significance to the lights 
which they burned during the sacred mysteries. This conjecture 
is confirmed by the fact that the Church of the fourth century 
still continued the religious use of lights when they were no 
longer needed to dispel the darkness. " Throughout the churches 
of the East," says Jerome, writing against Yigilantius, " hghts 
are kindled when the Gospel is to be read, although the sun is 
shining, not indeed to drive away the darkness, but as a sign of 
spiritual joy." A similar custom prevailed in the West. The 
mediaeval author of the " Micrologus" w^rites, " According to the 
Eoman order, we never celebrate mass without lights, . . . using 
them as a type of that light without which even in midday we 
grope as in the night." 

According to the present Catholic usage, mass cannot be cele- 
brated without candles of pure wax and of white color, save at 
masses for the dead, when candles of yellow wax are to be sub- 
stituted. Two candles must be lighted at a low mass, unless the 
mass be said for the convent or the parish, or on one of the 
greater solemnities, when four may be used. Six candles are 
lighted at high mass, seven at a bishop's mass. No less than 



174 CURIOSITIES OF 

twelve candles must be lighted at Benediction of the Blessed 
Sacrament, or six if Benediction be given with a pyx. Candles 
must also be lighted when communion is given either in a church 
or in a private house, and one lighted candle is required at ex- 
treme unction. The use of candles at funerals dates back to the 
fourth century. 

There are many instances during the Middle Ages of persons 
having a candle made, as a special devotion, of the same height 
or the same weight as themselves. Erasmus gibes at this in the 
" Colloquies," where a Zealander is represented during a storm as 
promising to St. Christopher a wax candle as large as the saint's 
statue in the great church in Paris. 

Louisa Costello in " A Summer among the Bocages," i. 341, 
tells of the custom of presenting a very large candle to St, 
Sebastian at his church on the Loire. It was placed in a boat 
instead of a mast, and was borne with infinite ceremony to the 
church. 

In some parts of Ireland it was usual on Christmas Eve to 
burn a large candle which no one was permitted to snuff except 
those who bore the name of Mary. 

There was at one time in England a due called wax-shot or 
wax-scot, a gift of wax candles presented to churches three 
times a year. What were called wax-rolls were pieces or cakes 
of wax, flat circular disks, presented to churches, for the use of 
which they were made into candles or tapers. Mr. Toulmin 
Smith has published some interesting researches on this subject 
gathered from the " Original Ordinances of more than One Hun- 
dred Early English Guilds," compiled by order of a Parliament 
held at Cambridge in the time of Richard II. 

Wax candles, or wax to make into candles, are frequently 
mentioned in the records, sometimes as presentations to churches, 
abbeys, and convents, sometimes as forfeits or penalties. 

The Guild of St. Katherine, Aldersgate, prescribed that five 
round tapers of wax, of the weight of twenty pounds, were to 
burn on high feast days to the honor of God, of the Virgin 
Mary, of St. Katherine and all saints, and to be used to light 
round the body of a dead brother, and in his funeral procession. 
The wardens of St. Botolph's Guild, Norwich, stated in their 
return that they had in hand twenty-six shillings and eightpence 
for the maintenance of a light. The Guild of St. George in the 
same city had in hand forty shillings for the support of a light 
and the making of an image. In relation to St. Katherine's 
Guild, another in old Norwich, "of the chattel of the guild shall 
there be two candles of wax, of sixteen pounds weight, about 
the body of the dead," whenever any brother or sister departed 
this life. The Guild of Young Scholars at Lynn was established 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 175 

chiefly to maintain an image of St. William, standing in a taber- 
nacle in the church of St. Margaret, with six tapers of wax burn- 
ing on festival days. The Guild of St. Elene at Beverley kept 
three wax lights burning every Sunday and feast day, in honor 
of St. Elene; while at the morning mass of Christmas Day thir- 
teen wax lights were burned. There must have been a goodly 
amount of wax consumed on the Feast of Candlemas by the 
Guild of St. Mary at Beverley ; for the brethren got up a pageant, 
in which two youths representing angels carried a chandelier or 
compound candlestick containing twenty- four thick wax lights, 
and the other members each carried a wax light. In the Guild 
of the Eesurrection of Our Lord, at Lincoln, at the funeral rites 
of a brother, thirteen wax lights were burned in four stands. In 
the Guild of St. Katherine at Stamford a fine of one pound of 
wax, plus twopence, was imposed on any member absent from 
the guild feast; and, as the feast itself was valued at twopence 
per head, the absentee paid for a dinner which he did not eat, 
besides losing a pound of wax. 

Wax lights were indispensable accompaniments to the other 
adornments of the royal palace, the feudal castle, and the baro- 
nial mansion of the olden time. In the Wardrobe Accounts 
of Edward lY., somewhat less than four centuries ago, there 
is a curious entry to the following effect: "William Whyte, 
tallough chaiindeller, for iij dosen and ix lb. of p's candell, for to 
light when the king's highness and goode grace on a nyght come 
unto his sayd grete warderobe, and at other divers tymes." From 
other entries it appears that p's was sometimes spelled peris, 
sometimes pares, sometimes parys: it is believed that the lights 
so used were called Paris candles. In that singular forerunner 
of our modern books of etiquette called the "Boke of Curtasye," 
written about the same period as the Wardrobe Accounts above 
adverted to, there is distinct mention of wax candles and Paris 
candles, but without any notification as to the materials whereof 
the latter were made : 

In chambre no lyght ther shall e be brent 
But of wax, thereto yf ye take tent : 
In halle at soper schalle candels brenne 
Of Parys, therein that alle men kenne. 

Here we are told of wax candles in the chamber and Paris 
candles in the hall, the former probably more delicate and costly 
than the latter. 

In Paris, the police commissary of the district of St.-Germain- 
I'Auxerrois receives annually a present of ten pounds of candles 
from the Chamber of Notaries. " The origin of this observance 
dates a long way back. It arose out of a dispute between the 



176 CURIOSITIES OF 

police commissary of the Chatelet and the Corporation of Nota- 
ries. The duty of the former was to hold a lighted candle at 
the door of the chamber as the legal gentlemen were entering it, 
and on one occasion the commissary complained that it was 
unfair for the expense of the candles to fall upon liim, contending 
that he ought rather to receive an indemnity lor his services. 
He gained his point, and from that time forward the commissary 
was given three hundred pounds of wax annually. In the course 
of time the three hundred pounds of wax have gradually melted 
away and dwindled, till at the present day the ancient custom 
has come down to the gift of a ten-pound box of composite 
candles. Very likel}'' it will not be long before the offering of 
this substitute for the original gift will be dropped." (^London 
Standard, 1891.) 

Canonization. An act of the Pope whereby he decrees, after 
a regular form of inquiry, that a deceased servant of God be 
enrolled among the saints and commended to the veneration and 
invocation of all Catholics. The idea which underlies canoniza- 
tion is one closely connected with the doctrine of the Communion 
of Saints, and has existed from a very early period in the Church, 
when the persecuted Christians were wont to collect and pre- 
serve with reverence and affection the remains of those who bad 
suffered for their faith. And there appears, from what St. 
Jerome tells us, to have been, long before any regular practice 
of invocation was established, a prevalent belief that the souls 
of these martyrs hovered about the place w^here their bodies were 
laid and were there somehow brought into contact with the liv- 
ing. The departed were believed still to take an interest in their 
old friends and the affairs of their earthly home, and to exercise, 
through their intercession, a beneficent influence over them. At 
the beginning popular admiration enjoyed, unchecked, the privi- 
lege of canonization. A saint became a saint by acclamation. 
That was the beginning of canonization, though the name itself 
was of subsequent growth. Gradually, as these local and other 
cults came to multiply beyond measure, the Popes assumed to 
themselves the sole prerogative of advancing claimants to the 
successive ranks of Beatitude and Sanctity. The canonized 
saints thenceforth held no merely local or precarious dignity; 
they were presented in solemn bulls and with rites of imposing 
splendor to the general homage of Christendom. Of course there 
were some saints, like the early martyrs, the four " great Doc- 
tors" respectively of East and West, and some other conspicuous 
bishops, confessors, and founders of religious orders, who may be 
called the saints of the universal Christian world. But down to 
the tenth century the popular voice, with the sanction of the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 177 

bishop, was held to be sufficient authority for conferring the 
honor. After that time the sanction of the Pope was required, 
though bishops still for a time retained their initiative. The first 
recorded canonization by Papal authority was that of Ulrich, 
Bishop of Augsburg, raised to that honor by a bull of John XY. 
in 993 at the request of Liutolf, Ulrich's immediate successor in 
the see, who had, however, already established public veneration 
for him in his own diocese. Pope John explained in an epistle that 
this usage was introduced in order that by honoring martyrs and 
confessors we may worship Him of whom they testified, and, being 
conscious of our own imperfections, seek the aid of their merits 
and prayers at the throne of God. But it was not until two cen- 
turies later that the prerogative was assigned exclusively to the 
Holy See by constitutions first of Alexander III. and then of 
Innocent III. The canonization of St. Gaullier of Pontoise by 
the Archbishop of Eouen in 1153 is the latest example of such 
an act being accomplished by any lower authority. Innocent 
III. finally announced that the decision in such matters apper- 
tained exclusively to the legitimate successor of St. Peter. The 
first canonization solemnized with anything like the present ritual 
pomp was that of St. Francis of Assisi, in 1228. It was not till 
fifty years later that the regular process, since developed into a 
minute and searching investigation of each individual case, was 
first exemplified in the canonization of St. Eaymond of Penna- 
fort. 

The process begins with an appeal for canonization supported 
by the bishop of the diocese wherein the potential saint resided. 
This appeal must be made at Eome in the presence of a promotor 
fidei, better known as the advocatus diaboli, or devil's advocate, 
whose duty it is to detect fiaws either in the character of the 
candidate or in the evidence adduced. If the inquiry be satis- 
factory and the eminent virtue of the candidate be certified by 
miracles duly authenticated, he is elevated first to the rank of 
Blessed, an act which is known as Beatification, and finally, after 
some years have elapsed, during which at least two new miracles 
have established the justice of the first verdict, three successive 
congregations are convened, at the third of which the Pope pre- 
sides and the public are admitted; the Papal consent is given, 
and a day fixed for the canonization to take place at St. Peter's. 
On that day a mass is said in honor of the new saint, his statue 
is unveiled, and his place in the calendar is announced. 

Caravaggio. This little village in Lombardy, half-way be- 
tween Milan and Cremona, famous in art as the birthplace of the 
painters Caravaggio, jumped into a new sort of fame in 1882 
as the scene of apparitions of the Virgin in the church of the 

12 



178 CURIOSITIES OF 

Madonna. The manifestations continued s})oradically for sev- 
eral years. They are thus described by a correspondent of the 
London Court Journal writing in 1883 : " Every day, at noon, tbe 
vision of the Virgin Mary rises from a dark recess behind one 
of the pillars of the aisle, and the struggles of the thousands of 
eager devotees to catch a glimpse of the apparition are most 
extraordinary. The shrieks and screams of the victims who are 
knocked down and trampled on amid the confusion are appalling. 
Those who cannot approach near enough to the shrine throw 
handfuls of copper coin against the iron grating which encloses 
it, and the shock of the metallic sound, amid the deep monoto- 
nous intoning of the priests, seems to produce a frenzy in the 
crowd, many of whom rush wildly about, shrieking and tearing 
their hair, and treading without mercy on the limbs of the pai-- 
alytics outstretched on the pavement. The simple village church, 
which is capable of containing only a few hundred people, is 
made to hold ten thousand, who, although packed, suifocating, 
perspiring, and trembling beneath the stifling atmosphere, yet 
continue to howl out their invocations. Outside, on the piazza, 
the scene is still more astounding. Around the fountain stand 
groups of devotees of every grade of life. The paralytic, with 
the maimed and crippled, are laid on the bare stones under a 
burning sun, and in due time are lifted into the fountain, while 
others, filling their little tin mugs with water, drink greedily, 
without heed of the pollution it has undergone from the sick 
who have been immersed therein. When the dismal bowlings 
of the pilgrims within the church announce the appearance of 
the misty vapor which precedes the apparition of the Virgin, 
the whole crowd fall to the ground, and literally shriek forth 
the litany composed for the occasion. The cripples fall back 
upon the pavement, the tin mugs are left to float upon the foun- 
tain, and the litany is succeeded by a dead silence." 

Carmentalia. An ancient Eoman festival celebrated on the 
11th of January. 

Carmenta, or Carmentis, was an ancient goddess of Latium, 
whose name points to prophetic powers, being of the same root 
as carmen^ " song;" the early oracles were all expressed in verse. 
The goddess is sometimes identified as the mother of Evander, 
who came to Latium from Arcadia and is said to have brought 
with him a knowledge of the arts, and the Latin alphabetical 
characters as distinguished from the Etruscan. 

A second festival, on the 15th, participated in chiefly by women, 
recognized two Carmentes, Porrima and Postverta, whose names 
were sometimes interpreted as referring to knowledge of both 
past and future. Of this goddess little is said in historical times, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 179 

when the primitive Latin worship was obscured by a crowd of 
Grecian and Oriental deities ; but she must have held a leading 
place in early times, for she had a special priest, the Flamen 
Carmentalis, and the gate near which her altar stood — just at 
the foot of the Capitoline, between it and the river — was called 
Carmentalis. Plutarch says that some supposed Carmenta to be 
one of the Fates who presided over the birth of men. The Greek 
title of the goddess was Themis. Into her chapel it was not per- 
mitted 10 carry any part of a dead animal, — for example, any- 
thing made of leather. It is related that the famous Marcus 
Popillius, in the time of the Samnite wars, — the first plebeian who 
ever obtained the honor of a triumph, — was flamen of Carmen- 
tis. When one day he was performing a sacrifice, clad in the 
Icena, or priestly robe, a tumult arose in the city. Popillius then 
hastily left the sacrifice, clad as he was, made his way to the 
assembly, and calmed the tumult by his authority and eloquence. 
In memory of this, from the loena or robe which he wore, the 
people gave him the name of Lcenas, which was borne by his 
descendants ; for it was quite out of order to address the people 
in any robe but the toga, the distinctive costume of a Eoman 
citizen. 

Carnival. (From the Latin words came vale, " farewell 
meat.") A period of feasting, license, and merrymaking imme- 
diately preceding Lent, to make up in anticipation for the gloom 
and abstinence of the forty days of penance. Strictly the Car- 
nival begins at Twelfth Day, but only the latter days are termed 
High Carnival, when the public festivities wax fast and furious, 
culminating in the revelry of Shrove Tuesday. Like the Christ- 
mas mummeries, it has its roots in the pagan Saturnalia (q. v.). 
The northern nations of Europe concerned themselves most with 
Christmas, the southern with the Carnival ; and the latter season 
now retains its hold only in Catholic localities. 

In ancient times the Carnival was emphatically the season for 
banquets. And these banquets, again, were the scenes of certain 
rash and romantic vows, made by the lords of the feast and their 
friends, and called vows of the swan, peacock, heron, pheasant, 
etc., according to the bird which the principal swearer happened 
to prefer. The ceremonies with which the oath was made were 
always fantastic. Sometimes the bird was produced living, but 
more frequently it formed the crowning dish. It was brought 
into the banquet-hall when excitement ran highest, and always 
with striking parade. The creature itself was profusely orna- 
mented with jewels, a trumpet-blast announced its approach, a 
herald in all the pomp of his costume preceded it, and a body of 
knights, squires, and pages attended it ; in short, it was accorded 



180 



CURIOSITIES OF 



all the stately ceremonial of a sovereign prince when visiting an 
equal. The bird, living or dead, having been presented to the 
host, the latter stood up, and, laying his hand upon it, pledged 
himself to perform some remarkable feat before the year was 
out, in honor of it and the ladies. For the most part these vows 




Roman Carnival in 1861. 



evaporated harmlessly. At times, however, the results were 
serious. One made by Edward III. led to the battle of Crecy ; 
another — by which Henry V. pledged himself to traverse France 
from sea to sea with banners spread — produced the dangerous 
march that closed so gloriously at Agincourt ; and a third by a 
Duke of Burgundy sent his heir, John the Fearless, — he who was 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 181 

afterwards murdered at Montereau, — to meet the Turk at the 
iiatal battle of Nicopolis. 

Mere feasting was but a portion of a Carnival banquet. 
Through its whole course the guests were entertained by music, 
juggling tricks, athletic feats, the wit and folly of jesters, and 
pieces of show called entremets. Of these the last two were 
most popular. The Chancellor I'Hopital has described in choice 
Latin how a jester could enliven a banquet. " Covering himself 
with the skin of a fox, and bedaubing his face with flour, he 
went through the satyr's dance, in which he imitated the silly 
movements of a clown at a village fete. Improving as he went 
on, he perched himself on the end of a stick, and, grasping it 
between his knees, spun round and round like a top. Many of 
the pages and valets attempted to imitate this portion of the 
performance, but they all tumbled down, to the amusement of 
the company." Polished society in those days, it is clear, was 
not fastidious. 

The entremets consisted in the introduction of the model of a 
ship, castle, or rock, elaborately decorated, and in the perform- 
ance of its tenants. The latter represented fiends, fairies, Turks, 
damsels, knights-errant, necromancers, etc. The apparatus was 
wheeled into the hall with what a quaint writer terms " an fair 
hurley-burley of minstrelsie," and the tenants, jumping out, 
danced, sang songs, made complimentary speeches, imitated the 
evolutions of a battle, or enacted a classic legend in dumb show. 
They then returned to their receptacle, which was wheeled out 
again in the midst of a deafening flourish of trumpets. Not 
infrequently the cumbrous machinery broke down, and the 
model stuck fast in some particularly inconvenient spot. In 
such cases guests and actors united to trundle the thing out by 
main force, — a sequel in which there was always more good fun 
than in the performance itself 

After the banquet came the ballet, — a matter in which every- 
thing sacred and profane was reduced to a dance. It was de- 
signed by the universal genius of the court, assisted by all the 
talent he could press into the service ; it was rehearsed for 
months previous to the grand exhibition; the performers were 
all of gentle birth ; and not the least of its attractions was the 
splendor of the dresses and the scenery. The Duke of Ossuna, 
Viceroy of Naples 1616-20, was a great master of the art of 
giving ballets. In one of these the actresses — twelve beauties 
of high rank — were provided with every article of their superb 
array at his expense. The whole cost amounted to seven thou- 
sand two hundred ducats, or three thousand dollars apiece. The 
Jenkins of the viceregal court went into ecstasies over the 
results. Taking a liberty denied to his successors, he described 



182 CURIOSITIES OF 

the undergarments of the twelve as of white satin fringed with 
gold lace. Their petticoats, which he takes care to let us know 
were not too lengthy, consisted of the same material, and were 
similarly fringed. They wore crowns of white satin and silver, 
ornamented with heron-plumes, and their trains of silver brocade 
huDg over their left arms. Thus garbed, they executed a torch 
dance, which was enthusiastically applauded. 

Of all Carnival entertainments decidedly the first in point of 
taste was one given by Mazarin. After a repast which Made- 
moiselle d'Orleans pronounced " no less elegant than abundant," 
the cardinal led his guests — all the leading courtiers — into a 
gallery full of beautiful toys and glittering trifles of every de- 
scription. There were ornaments from China and Japan, rare 
shawls from India, chandeliers of crystal, mirrors, tables, cabi- 
nets, silver goblets, gloves, ribbons, lace, fans, etc., enough to 
stock a dozen fancy warehouses. The ladies were delighted with 
the spectacle, especially when their host handed each of them a 
ticket for a lottery which was held a few days after and wherein 
every one drew a prize, until the gallery was emptied of its 
pretty store. It is stated that the whole affair cost Mazarin a 
sum equal to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 

Not the least singular of the scenes which marked the Carni- 
val of the past were its processions. They were moral, mythic, 
historic, politic, and comic, according to the taste of those who 
got them up. A specimen of these processions, whose exact 
character it would be difficult to determine, was exhibited in 
Paris during the supremacy of the League by the Walloon 
soldiers of the Spanish garrison. It was called the Mask of the 
Patience of Job. One of the Walloons representing the " good 
man Job" was mounted on an ass, whose tail he held instead of 
a bridle. In front of him went a crowd of musicians playing 
with all their might, and after him followed some hundreds of 
his comrades, naked to the waist, and painted like so many 
Indians about to take to the war-path. Close behind Job came 
two soldiers, got up to represent, the one the wife of the patri- 
arch, and the other the evil spirit. And between the three was 
maintained a conversation which grossly parodied those recorded 
in the Bible. This farce was interrupted from time to time in 
order that the "good man Job" might bestow his blessing — a 
choice piece of low ribaldry — on the spectators. 

A mask of another order — perhaps the most striking ever 
witnessed — was exhibited at Florence during the Carnival of 
1512, the Medici being then in exile. The night had already 
closed round, and the streets were thronged with merrymakers, 
when a low, deep, wailing sound was heard in the distance: 
Every one paused and listened. The strange sound drew nearer, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 183 

and. a8 it did so, the " Miserere," chanted by many voices, fell 
clearly on the ear. While the listeners were still wondering, a 
procession came in view, like a river of fire, for everj- member 
thereof carried a lighted torch. The concentrated blaze ren- 
dered the torch- bearers strangely distinct, and the spectators 
shuddered, for every one wore a snow-white death's-head mask 
over an inky shroud. It seemed as if the grave had released its 
dead to share in this particular Carnival. The thrilling interest 
of the scene increased as the procession streamed along. In its 
centre was a cart, drawn by four oxen, whose sides were grim 
with pale crosses, skulls, and bones painted on a jet-black ground, 
and from the roof six black banners, similarly blazoned, streamed 
to the ground. On a pedestal in the centre of that roof stood 
the figure of Death, with a scythe in his hand, the light stream- 
ing through his hollow skull and empty ribs and glancing on his 
bleached bones; and at the feet of Death lay six half-opened 
sepulchres, in which were seen six dead bodies, partly decayed. 
Immediately behind the car rode a troop of skeletons, mounted 
on miserable horses, whose sable trappings were embroidered 
with pale crosses and symbols of the grave ; and each ghastly 
cavalier was attended by four squires, ghastly as himself, carry- 
ing a blazing torch in one hand, and a black banner, sown with 
white crosses and bleaching bones, in the other. Suddenly a 
long, piercing trumpet-blast pealed. The spectators shrank, and 
thought of the last judgment. At the call the dreary procession 
ceased its chant and came to a dead halt. Then the sepulchres 
on the car flew open, and the dead within, springing to their feet, 
burst into a dismal song, one of whose verses ran as follows : 

Morti siam', come vedete ; 
Cosi morti, vedrem' vol : 
Fummo gia, come voi siete, 
Vol sarete, come noi. 

(" Dead we are, as ye may see, 
Dead like us ye soon shall be : 
Once ourselves were just as ye, 
Soon yourselves shall be as we.") 

At the close of this song the trumpet rang again. Then the 
dead sank back into their sepulchres, the maskers resumed their 
chant, and the spectre march moved on. 

But the usual character of Florentine Carnival processions 
was not so lugubrious. Such subjects as the triumphs of Bac- 
chus and Silenus or other mythic and allegoric groups Avere far 
more popular. All these were produced in the most sumptuous 
manner. The greatest painters were employed in designing 
them, the greatest poets wrote the verses for the occasion. 



184 CURIOSITIES OF 

During the period of religious excitement produced by the 
preaching of Savonarola the procession assumed a scriptural 
tone. In every street Shrove Tuesda5^ beheld a repetition of the 
patriarch David and his Israelites dancing around the ark. And 
as they danced they sang a fantastic hymn with the following 
refrain : 

We dance and sing and prance and fling, 

'Tis grace that makes us glad : 
No greater bliss can be than his 
Who piously goes mad, goes mad I 
Then let us all go mad. 

And mad they went accordingly. The whole city joined in the 
madness. 'No better proof can be given than the sacrifice which 
closed the Carnival of 1496. In answer to the demands of peri- 
patetic enthusiasts, fine gentlemen and fair ladies surrendered 
all their "vanities," their dresses, their jewelry, their lewd 
paintings and lewd books, their musical and gambling instru- 
ments, their padding, false hair, and rouge. Of the motley heap 
a vast bonfire was made in the Piazza della Signoria, and around 
it capered the mighty multitude, chanting its frantic chorus. 

The Italian monk was not the only reformer who turned the 
doings of the Carnival to account. At Wittenberg the Shrove 
Tuesday of 1521 was signalized by a parody on the Papal pro- 
cession through the Eternal City, which gave the Germans of 
that quarter an opportunity of manifesting their anti-Eoman 
sentiments. And on the Shrove Tuesday of 1522 a street-show 
exhibited at Berne, which satirized all the oflScials of the older 
Church, from the Pope down to the sexton, did much towards 
effecting the triumph of the Eeformation in the sovereign canton. 

The Carnival was always remarkable lor its rude sports. Cock- 
fighting, bear-baiting, and other species of animal torture were 
then allowed full swing. (See Shrove Tuesday.) 

It was also a chosen season for practical jesting. At a Carnival 
ball in the Louvre, Charles IX. once secretly let loose ten of the 
most skilful pickpockets in Paris, giving them full leave to steal 
whatever they could, and threatening them with punishment 
only if they were detected. Then he looked on in great glee as 
they plundered lord and lady alike, his delight at every dexter- 
ous theft being increased by the dismay of the despoiled upon 
missing their jewels, their girdles, their fans, their swords, or 
their comfit-boxes. 

Grimmer was the prank played by his predecessor Louis XI. 
All round the old tiger's den, Plessis-les-Tours, stretched a wood, 
and from nearly every tree of it dangled a dead body ; for Louis 
was terribly ready with capital punishment, and he never al- 
lowed the remains of such victims as died by strangulation to 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 185 

be removed. On Shrove Tuesday night Louis commanded his 
guards to rouse up the neighboring villagers and hurry them to 
the castle. There he had already provided music, and, while his 
fiddlers played, he compelled each of his unwilling guests to lake 
a gibbeted corpse as partner and dance before it until dawn. 
Nor did he forget to arrange the couples. There were many 
there who had husbands, sweethearts, and relatives among the 
dead, and good King Louis did not allow friends and relatives to 
be separated at his nice ball. 

Atrocious as was the jest of Louis XI., it was hardly more so 
than many others which the chroniclers record of the great 
seigneurs of the olden time. Among the few of these that will 
bear quoting should be classed the feudal custom of causing every 
plebeian bride to dance an unseemly dance and to sing a ludicrous 
song in the church porch, and before the lord of the manor, 
within a year of her wedding. The ceremony for the most part 
took place during the Carnival. We find that it was observed in 
France so late as 1620. We have now under our eyes the report 
of a judgment of that date, which terminated a suit that had 
lasted for nine years, by deciding which of the rival seigneurs 
was entitled to preside at the " chansons.'' 

Eome has always been the head-quarters of the Carnival. It 
holds its pre-eminence even in these days when there, as else- 
where, the custom is in its decadence. In the Middle Ages the 
Corso was the scene of grand tournaments and stately pageants. 
The palaces glittered with jewelled cloths, and their owners, in 
festal raiment, crowded the tapestried balconies to pelt their 
friends, neighbors, or sweethearts in the streets below. Although 
the people took their part as spectators and jostled and jested 
with one another in a struggling mass in the Corso, it was emi- 
nently a feast provided for them by the aristocracy. The people 
had little more to do with the active part of it than the rank and 
file of the Achseans and Trojans had to do with the Homeric 
battles, for much money had to be spent upon it. To-day all 
is changed. The patrician and the grandee have gone out. II 
Popolo Eomano has come in. The Corso now is its playground. 
The Carnival, once the sport of Popes and cardinals, the play- 
thing of princes, is now the people's pecuhar festival, their holi- 
day of mirth. Fashionable Eomans disdain it, since the plebeian 
is in possession. Only those modern Goths and Yandals, the 
tourists, come to see the sport. 

Nor do they go unrewarded. Even in its decadence a Eoman 
Carnival is well worth seeing, as a pleasant bit of low comedy. 
In the Corso the crowds swarm up and down, the masks and 
dominos among them lighting up the grim palaces, whose balco- 
nies, decorated with flowers and ribbons, and crowded with spec- 



186 CURIOSITIES OF 

tators of many nationalities, flash back an answering light. On 
the last three days, including Shrove Tuesday, war breaks out 
between the streets and the balconies, the missiles being showers 
of confetti {q. v.), hard lime pellets of the size of a hailstone and 
quite as hard, and coriandoli, or small bonbons. Battles of Flow- 
ers (q. V.) are also a feature. 

The Carnival ends in a blaze of hght. As night descends 
on Shrove Tuesday every masker lights the moccoletto, or wax 
taper, with which he has provided himself, and parades through 
the streets seeking to blow out his neighbor's and retain his own 
light. 

The same general features are found in other Italian cities, 
save of course in Venice, where an exceptional environment pro- 
duces exceptional effects. A procession of gondolas and boats 
along the Grand Canal, all brilliantly decorated and filled with 
maskers, public dances in the Piazza of St. Mark, illuminated at 
night for the purpose, and in the Kidotto, the ancient j;iall of the 
Venetian dancers, feasting in private houses, grand balls in the 
palaces of the nobility, and splendid receptions at the official 
residences, — these occupy the full measure of the time from 
Epiphany to Ash Wednesday. On Shrove Tuesday the ceremony 
of burying King Carnival (q. v.) is performed. 

For a score of years back Nice has been famous for its Car- 
nival parades, in which King Carnival also appears. The Battle 
of Flowers was long a unique feature here, but it has been caught 
up and appropriated by other places. 

Spain still enters into the spirit of the Carnival with naive 
earnestness. Madrid in especial gives itself up entirely to the 
enjoyment of the hour. The Corso lasts for four days, begin- 
ning on the last Sunday before Lent. From noon until night 
the great drive is crowded with a double line of carriages, and 
between this double hne are the landaus of those who have paid 
for the privilege of driving up and down free from the law of 
the road. 

A great variety of fantastic costumes are worn. All liberties 
are pardoned to the maskers. They jump in and out of the 
coaches, and dart about the drive. Turks, prophets, kings, 
monks, devils, and a variety of other characters may be seen 
wandering about in the festive throng. A democratic spirit pre- 
vails everywhere. A duke may wander about in the dress of a 
chimney-sweep, while a store clerk by his side may be decked in 
the garb of a prince. A duchess may be hailed by her first 
name by a peasant, and may accept bonbons from his hand with 
no loss of dignity. 

The gayety waxes fast and furious before it is finally quenched 
in the gloom of Lent. Ash Wednesday is a day of merriment, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 187 

then three days of gloom follow, and on Sunday the Carnival 
has a resurrection, and the gayest ball of the year takes place at 
the Opera. After this ball Lent begins in earnest, and sackcloth 
and ashes succeed the brilhant costumes of the Carnival. 

In France the festivities are confined almost entirely to the 
Shrove Tuesday or Mardi-Grras procession of the Boeuf Gras (^. v.) 
and to certain student revelries. In Belgium, in Germany, and 
in almost all other European countries and their dependencies 
where the Catholic religion retains any hold, a more or less dim 
survival from the past still flits through a ghost-like existence. 

In Eussia the week before Lent is given up to Carnival gayc- 
ties. The Eussians have no Ash Wednesday. With them Car- 
nival begins and ends on Sunday. These eight days are crammed 
full of performances, — national plays, native and foreign operas, 
dramatized folk-tales, ballets, — some given in the regular theatres 
and othets in huge temporary barn-like structures run up for the 
occasion in the public squares. 

There is out-door amusement in plenty. Coasting down ice 
hills, riding in merry-go-rounds, feasting on the pancakes, ginger- 
bread, sunflower-seed, and other dainties ofl'ered at sidewalk 
stalls, or drinking tea from the huge samovars that stand hissing 
in the snow, — such are the recreations of the open-air revellers 
who parade the streets in masks and dominos or in their mere 
Sunday best. 

The New Orleans Carnival has been growing steadily since its 
establishment in 1830, and is now one of the most brilliant of 
the public and social festivities in the United States. A dozen 
organizations, most of them secret societies, join to give eclat to 
its last days, especially to the Monday and Tuesday before Lent. 
The most important of these are the Eex, Momus, Proteus, and 
Comus associations. 

At sunset on Monday, bells, trumpets, whistles, and human 
throats join in tumultuous din to welcome the announcement 
that his Majesty Eex is approaching his well-loved city. At this 
signal flags fly, and thousands of men, women, and children spring 
as by magic from the banquettes. All are brimful of curiosity 
to see the sovereign with his escort land at the foot of Canal 
Street, visit the City Hall, receive the keys and homage from 
the mayor, and then disappear till the morrow. By ten o'clock on 
Tuesday morning (Mardi-Gras) every available inch of space 
along the route of the procession is occupied. Finally a mighty 
shout goes up, and far in the distance is heard the steady march 
of the on-coming parade with the lilting notes of the kino;'s own 
band. It was for the Eussian Grand Duke Alexis that Eex first 
rode in his regal costume at the head of a body of Arabic troops. 
This was in 1872, when all the day maskers were first united in 



188 



CURIOSITIES OF 



a procession. The experiment was a success, and Eex became an 
established ftivorite. The festivities in his honor close with a ball 
at Artillery Hall. But the Rex organization already noted is 
only one of a dozen, each of which contributes its share to the 
festivities. Rex is not the only king, nor is his queen the only 
queen. There are other royalties, whose subjects, although not 
so numerous, are more powerful. The organization of the Mystic 
Krewe of Oomus is the oldest of them all, and its parade, which 
takes place after nightfall, is the most gorgeous. 




Figures in the New Orleans Carnival Ball. 



In 1857, coming apparently from nowhere and known to no 
one, appeared the Mystic Krewe of Comus in a fantastic night 
parade made up of gorgeous floats manned by masked revellers. 
No one knew who the maskers were, and no one admitted that 
he belonged to the organization. Every year since then, except 
during the war, Comus has paraded and given his ball on the 
night of Shrove Tuesday, and in some respects his Krewe is the 
most interesting of all the Carnival companies. 

In the first place, Comus outdoes them all in mystery, and 
mystery is at a premium in these affairs. If you should ask a 
man to get you an invitation to the Comus ball, he would per- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 189 

haps say that " he thought he knew a man" who might be able 
to get it for him. He never would hint that he himself was a 
member of the organization, even though he might be at the 
very head of it. The men who belong to the various organi- 
zations are not known to the general public, and they are not 
supposed to be known to any one outside of the limits of the 
membership. 

The people who go to the ball, the very queen herself and her 
maids of honor, are not informed of the identity of the king. 
They all guess, but the completeness of the disguise may be im- 
agined from the statement of a woman who knows the men who 
have filled the royal throne for several years. She said that she 
had heard a great many guesses as to the identity of the king, 
but she never had heard a correct one. So the people go on 
from year to year, bowing to one king after another, and never 
knowing who these kings are. As for the men who are the 
kings, they seem to be just as anxious to keep up the game of 
blindman's-buff as anybody is. They never tell about "when I 
was king of Comus." 

The queen is not masked. In fact, no one is masked except 
the men who have taken part in the parade. There are no 
women in the parade, all female characters being represented by 
men. A woman wearing a mask would not be admitted to the 
hall. 

Carnival, King. A burlesque potentate, the lineal descendant 
of the Abbot of Unreason and the Lord of Misrule, who in some 
localities represents the Carnival as elsewhere Santa Claus 
represents Christmas. But, as Santa Claus is a myth. King 
Carnival is usually an of^gy. In this form he makes his most 
famous appearances at Venice and at Nice, and has recently been 
introduced into Eome, Paris, and other places. A flesh and blood 
Xing Carnival, however, better known as Eex, is annually 
named in New Orleans, to conduct the more popular of the fes- 
tivities. This is purely an American innovation. 

In Yenice, where King Carnival was born, he is born again 
every year only to die. He does not put in an appearance until 
the afternoon of Shrove Tuesday, and then at the end of a 
few hours of vicarious gayety is laid on the funeral pyre. The 
procession in his honor forms at the gardens of Napoleon : he 
himself, a straw e^gy richly dressed and stuffed with fireworks, 
is placed in a splendid palanquin which is borne on the shoulders 
of a score or so of maskers. An army of attendants follow 
him, an array of caricature and personification, — troops of 
devils, troops of sprites, troops of outlandish creatures with 
heads of bears, hogs, wolves, and bulls, hunchbacks and de- 



190 CURIOSITIES OF 

formities, some unnaturally large, others unnaturally tall or 
crooked, still others elegantly and artistically attired in expen- 
sive masks and vestments, bespeaking their position among the 
higher classes. When the procession reaches the Piazza of St. 
Mark it stops there. Dancing and revelry are conducted before 
the kingly throne. As midnight approaches, a change occurs 
in the appearance of his majesty. His hair is powdered white, 
his festive robe and sceptre are exchanged for a long white sheet 
or pall, his hands are pinioned upon his breast. The richly 
decked car has become an execution-block and a bier. Slowly 
and solemnly it is escorted to the Molo, and there, upon the spot 
where were executed the state criminals of the old republic, 
King Carnival's palanquin is set on fire and he and it are con- 
sumed together. 

An eye-witness of the Venetian Carnival of 1868, when the 
ceremony was at its best, thus describes the final scene : 

" As the great clock of St. Mark was striking the midnight 
hour, the band ceased playing, and scarcely a sound was heard 
in all that immense crowd. A moment of silence and darkness 
intervened, and then a small light was seen to issue from one 
corner of the high palanquin, which soon broke into a vari- 
colored blaze of different hues, according to the various hidden 
compounds ignited ; then a rocket shot up from the same frame- 
work, and Eoman candles threw out their soft, beautiful balls 
of fire, while fiery serpents sprang out in every direction from 
the same hidden source, whence issued every variety of pyro- 
technic fires. The flames now spread to every part of the 
palanquin, igniting fieiy wheels, circles, and all manner of fig- 
ures, giving to many of them an automatic movement quite 
magical in appearance. The fire now surged in waves over the 
bier and around the ghastly figure of the doomed monarch, who 
stood immovable amid his dissolving glory, — his very throne 
proving, like many another, to be a mine of destructive elements 
to its possessor. Finally the discharge of rockets became so 
rapid and so noisy, as they leaped into the dark vault overhead 
with startling screeches and long trails of fire, that the crowd 
who had been so attracted by the milder discharges of fireworks 
at the beginning of the exhibition became terrified, swayed 
back, very willing to retreat from so close a proximity to what 
appeared to be, as it was in fact, an infernal machine. The 
flames now reached the sacred person of the fated king, and, 
climbing up his gaunt limbs, ignited innumerable fireworks con- 
cealed in his legs and body, wrapping his pale visage in a blaze, 
and, communicating with his combustible brain, caused the whole 
figure to burst into a thousand fragments with a deafening ex- 
plosion, ending in a brilliant coruscation of light in the national 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



191 



colors. Thus died King Carnival, amid one of the finest and 
most wonderful automatic pyrotechnical displays imaginable." 
{Galaxy, ¥ehrusiry, 1869.) 

In Greece the people on Shrove Tuesday take a block of wood 
and dress it in old clothes to represent a very fat but armless 
and legless personage. This is dubbed the Carnival. A rough 
bier is made of four sticks of wood fastened together with ropes, 
whereon the Carnival is placed, and half a dozen young men 
bear this on their shoulders to the tomb, preceded by a com- 
pany of others who, hand in hand and some ten abreast, dance 
and sing ribald songs. The eflSgy is paraded through the streets 
of town or village, every passer-by and every householder being 
solicited for alms, and is then taken out into some open space 
and buried with a burlesque of the rites of the Church. 




King Carnival II. of Paris. (1897.) 

The King Carnival of Nice was first introduced into the fes- 
tivities in 1872. He makes his annual appearance on the second 
Sunday before Shrove Tuesday, takes his place in the parade on 
that day, stops at the Casino, where the keys of the city are de- 
Hvered to him with a florid speech by the mayor, and is escorted 
to his throne, there to remain for ten days, the monarch of ail 
he surveys. When his brief reign is over he is dethroned and 
burned amid the same rejoicings as those which had originally 
welcomed him. 



192 CURIOSITIES OF 

This King Carnival is a huge effigy. Of recent times it has 
been usual to make every year add to his stature, so as to retain 
a record of his actual age. In 1897, for example, being then 
twenty-five years old, he was twenty-five feet high. But it is 
improbable that he will rise much higher. Every year also the 
king takes on different accoutrements, but always he is meant to 
be representative of the times. When the bicycle fever first 
broke out he was a gigantic bicyclist, in 1896 he was perched on 
an automobile carriage, etc. 

In 1896 the Parisians introduced a king into their Carnival 
festivities, which is an obvious importation from Nice. King 
Carnival II. made his due appearance in 1897. 

The burial of King Carnival has a curious affiliation with the 
more ancient rite of the Burial of the Sardine {q. v.), and is no 
doubt a collateral descendant of the latter. 

Carols. Joyous songs for festive occasions, and specifically 
for Christmas. They were anciently accompanied by dancing. 

In an old vocabulary of a.d. 1440, Garal is defined as iSonge ; 
in John Palsgrave's v^ork of a.d. 1530, as Chanson de Noel. The 
word comes directly from the Middle English carolen, " to sing 
joyously." The earliest carol in English, known under that 
name, is the production of Dame Berners, Prioress of St. Albans 
in the fourteenth century, entitled " A Carolle of Huntynge." 
This is printed on the last leaf of Wynkyn de Worde's collection 
of Christmas carols, a.d. 1521, and the first verse, modernized, 
runs thus : 

As 1 came by a green forest side, 

I met with a forester that bade me abide. 

Whey no bet, hey go bet, hey go how, 

We shall have sport and game enow. 

Milton uses the word " carol" to express a devotional hymn : 

A quire 
Of squadron 'd angels hear his carol sung. 

And that distinguished light of the English Church, Bishop 
Jeremy Taylor, speaks of the angels' song on the morning of the 
Nativity as the first Christmas carol : " As soon as these blessed 
choristers had sung their Christmas carol, and taught the 
Church a hymn to put into her offices forever," etc. 

According to Durandus, it was customary in early days for 
bishops to sing with their clergy in the episcopal houses on the 
feast of the Nativity : " In Natali prselati cum suis clericis 
ludant, vel in domibus episcopalibus." 

When the Mystery and Morahty Plays were in vogue as a 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 193 

means of religious instruction and were represented in churches, 
monasteries, and nunneries, carols grew in favor, since they were 
to the olden play what the music between the acts is to the 
modern drama. Companies of singers were retained to appear 
before the stage and divert the audience with carols and other 
songs, and thus the dreary time of waiting while a new scene 
was in preparation was passed agreeably to the people, — so agree- 
ably, in fact, that there was frequently no little disturbance 
created by the rivalry between the singers and the players, each 
party striving for more time. The people, fond of joining in 
with the chorus, sometimes espoused the cause of the singers, 
and on one occasion, in Chester, during the progress of a miracle 
play, the stage was wrecked, the properties and dresses of the 
performers were destroyed, and the players severely beaten by a 
musical mob, who fancied their favorite carol-singers were ill- 
treated by the managers of the play. 

Difficulties of this kind were, it seems, not infrequent in Eng- 
land, France, and Germany during the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries, the result being that, to obviate all danger of a dis- 
turbance, the carol-singing was incorporated in the play and the 
singers were actors as well as musicians. They had their ac- 
companiments also, for many churches had portable organs, car- 
ried by a strap thrown over the shoulder of the performer, who 
with one hand worked the bellows of the instrument and with 
the other played the melody of the hymn. Thus accoutred, the 
organist led the procession, the singers following him to and fro 
on the stage, and sometimes the parade was continued through 
the streets, the people falling in line and joining in the hymn. 

Not all the Christmas carols, however, were religious in their 
nature. Many were lively secular airs, some wedded to words 
that were anything but devotional. Dancing was quite as much 
a part of the Christmas entertainment as singing, and the same 
tune often served both purposes. Convivial songs, songs of 
pleasantry, love-songs, even merry ballads of questionable pro- 
priety, were used at this season, and in one of Pepys's curious 
volumes he gives a list of tunes that were sung at a social gath- 
ering he visited, and in mentioning them he seems especially im- 
pressed by one. All the people in a dancing set on the floor sang 
a verse, then the instruments played the same tune, while all 
danced during the interlude, then sang again. 

Of all the carols, either religious or secular, which have come 
down to us from the past, the most abidingly popular is the one 
beginning 

God rest you, merry gentlemen. 

Let nothing you dismay, 
For Jesus Christ in Bethlehem 
"Was born upon this day. 
13 



194 CURIOSITIES OF 

Dickens in the " Carol" puts this old rhyme into the mouth of 
Scrooge's unlucky caller on Christmas Eve, who, the reader will 
remember, had a narrow escape from the mahogany ruler in the 
hands of the irate old miser. It is still sung in England by 
choruses of men and boys on their annual rounds in the evening 
and far into the night before the great holiday. 

Carol-singing on Christmas Eve is also as much in vogue in the 
east end of London as ever it was a century or two ago. The 
elder members of the various church choirs and the Sunday- 
school children always parade the streets after midnight on 
Christmas Eve, singing outside the dwelling-houses of the more 
influential parishioners. They are usually invited into the houses 
they visit, and regaled with tea, coffee, and hot toast. 

In some of the cathedral churches of England carol-singing is 
kept up as a part of the service, the choristers singing a Christ- 
mas carol at the door, in some parts of the nave, or on one of 
the towers. In one church in Kent a carol is sung every Christ- 
mas morning, the choristers standing around a particular slab in 
the floor which covers the remains of an old lad}^ who during 
the reign of Elizabeth made a bequest to provide the church 
choir with a Christmas dinner in consideration of this mark of 
respect shown her memory. Such instances of the perpetuation 
of the custom, are, however, rare. 

Catherine, St., patron saint of Venice, of philosophy and 
belles-lettres, of maidens, and against diseases of the tongue. 
Her father, Castio, King of Egypt, died when she was fourteen, 
and she succeeded to the throne. Urged by her subjects to 
marry, she replied that her husband must have four gifts : he 
must be so nobly born that all would worship him ; so great that 
he would not be indebted to her for being made a king ; so beau- 
tiful that angels should desire to see him ; and so benign as to 
forgive all offences Then her subjects despaired, for they knew 
of no such man. But the Virgin Mary appeared in a vision to 
a hermit named Alexandria, and bade him tell Catherine that 
her son was the husband she desired. The hermit gave Catherine 
pictures of Mary and Jesus. And gazing on his face she loved 
him, and could think of nothing else, and her studies became 
dull to her. One night she dreamed that angels bore her to his 
presence, but he turned away, saying, " She is not fair enough 
for me." Waking she wept, and besought the hermit to tell her 
how she might make herself worthy ; and he, finding that she 
was a heathen, taught her the Christian faith, and baptized her. 
That night the Virgin and Son appeared to her, and Mary pre- 
sented her to Jesus, saying, " Lo, she hath been baptized, and I 
myself am her godmother." Then Jesus smiled on her, and was 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



195 



betrothed to her, and, waking, she found a ring upon her finger. 
From that time she despised all worldly things. Soon alter 
Maximin came to Alexandria and persecuted the Christians. 
Then Catherine went to the temple and held an argument with 
the tyrant and confounded him. He ordered fifiy learned men 




St. Catheeine. 
(From a mediaeval manuscript.) 

to come from all parts of the world to dispute with her, but she 
converted them all. Maximin in a great rage condemned them 
to the stake, and Catherine stood by and comforted them while 
they were burning. The Emperor fell in love with her beauty, 
and when she would not yield her virtue cast her into a dungeon. 
But angels ministered to her; and when, twelve days after, the 
Empress and her hundred attendants opened the dungeon, a 
bright hght filled the whole place. The Empress and two hun- 
dred heathen were converted by the sight. Maximin put them 
all to death, and Catherine, having indignantly refused his offer 
of marriage, was bound between four spiked wheels, which turn- 
ing in opposite directions would rend her to pieces. But fire 
came down from heaven and consumed the wheels, and three 
thousand persons were killed by flying pieces. Then Catherine 
was scourged and beheaded. Angels bore her body to Mount 



196 CURIOSITIES OF 

Sinai. She is represented as richly dressed, and her attribute is 
the wheel, either whole or broken. She has also the martyr's 
palm, the royal crown, and a book, symbolical of her learning. 

The convent of St. Catherine, situated in a valley on the slope 
of Mount Sinai, was founded by the Emperor Justinian in the 
sixth century. A marble sarcophagus contains the supposed 
relics of St. Catherine. Of these the skeleton of the hand, cov- 
ered with rings and jewels, is exhibited to pilgrims and visitors. 

St. Cathern favors learned men, and gives them wisdom high, 
And teacheth to resolve the doubts, and always giveth aid 
Unto the scolding sophister, to make his reason staid. 

So runs Barnaby Googe's translation of " The Popish King- 
dom." The same authority asks, — 

What should I tell what sophisters on Cathern 's day devise? 
Or else the superstitious joyes that maisters exercise. 

But it was mainly as the patron of spinsters and an aid to 
matrimony that St. Catherine was courted. So late as 1730 La 
Motte in his " Essay on Poetry and Painting," p. 126, says, " St. 
Catherine is esteemed in the Church of Eome as the saint and 
))atrones8 of the spinsters; and her holiday is observed, not in 
Popish countries only, but even in many places in this nation : 
young women meeting on the 25th of November and making 
merry together, which they call Catherning." 

A correspondent of the At hen ceum, October 31, 1840, recalls the 
custom in Worcestershire, when he was a boy, of going a-Cat- 
taring, in honor of St. Catherine and of St. Clement: "About 
this season of the year," he says, " the children of the cottagers 
used to go round to the neighboring farm-houses, to beg apples 
and beer, for a festival on the above saints' days. The apples 
were roasted on a string before the fire, stuck thickly over with 
cloves, and allowed to fall into a vessel beneath. There were 
set verses for the occasion, which were sung, in a not unmusical 
chant, in the manner of carol-singing. I can only recollect the 
first few lines : 

Catt'n and Clement comes year by year. 

Some of your apples and some of your beer ; 

Some for Peter, some for Paul, 

Some for Him who made us all. 

Peter was a good old man. 

For his sake give us some : 

Some of the best, and none of the worst. 

And God will send your souls to roost. 

I well remember it always concluded with — 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 197 

Up with the ladder and down with the can, 
Give me red apples and I'll begone ; 

the ladder alluding to the store of apples generally kept in a 
loft or somewhere at the top of the house ; and the can, doubt- 
less, to the same going down into the cellar for the beer." 
E. Gulson has this paragraph in Notes and Queries : 
" At a recent meeting of the Archaeological Institution, in 
Dorset, a party visited the little Norman Chapel of St. Catherine 
at Milton Abbey, when the Eev. C. W. Bingham told us of the 
legend. On a certain day in the year the young women used to 
go up to St. Catherine's Chapel, where they made use of the 
following prayer : 

A husband, St. Catherine ; 

A handsome one, St. Catherine ; 

A rich one, St. Catherine ; 

A nice one, St. Catherine ; 

And soon, St. Catherine. 

" Mr. Beresford Hope, who at these gatherings is always equal 
to any emergency, modestly proposed that all the gentlemen and 
married ladies should retire from the chapel, so as to afford the 
young ladies present the opportunity of using so desirable a 
prayer." 

Catherine of Siena, St., patroness of that Italian city. She 
lived in the fourteenth ceniury, and was a woman of great 
energy and influence in her time. It is certain that she procured 
the return of Pope Gregory XI. from Avignon to Eome, and had 
a voice in many important affairs of state. The house where 
she was born is in one of the poorest and dirtiest parts of the 
city, now, as anciently, the fullers' quarter, for St. Catherine was 
the daughter of a dyer and fuller. It is near the old fountain 
of Fontebranda, which Dante mentions. Yery little of the 
saint's original dwelling remains, except the chamber, and within 
is the cell which she inhabited. The latter is a little room about 
seven feet by six, lighted only by the door which communicates 
with the outer chamber. The brick floor is protected by a wooden 
covering, with a plate of glass inserted above the stone which 
formed St. Catherine's pillow. There is no furniture, and no 
ornament save a crucifix. But the rest of the house is converted 
into oratories gaudily decorated, with a few fine frescos repre- 
senting the life of St. Catherine, and the miraculous crucifix 
from which she is said to have received the stigmata. A fine 
fresco by Sodoma, in one of the chapels of the church of San 
Domenico, represents her as swooning beneath the heavenly 
visitation. She is supported in the arms of two nuns, and the 
divinely given w^ounds are seen in her hands. 



198 CURIOSITIES OF 

Cattino, Sacro. (It., " Sacred Dish.") A once famous relic, 
still kept in the church of St. Lawrence in Genoa, which used 
to be reverenced as the emerald dish given by the Queen of 
Sheba to King Solomon and afterwards preserved in the temple. 
Tradition likewise asserted that from this dish Christ ate the 
Last Supper. Found among the spoils of Csesarea on the capture 
of that town by the combined armies of Genoa and Pisa in 1101, 
the Genoese took the '• Sacro Cattino" for their share of the 
booty, leaving to the Pisans the entire mass of filthy lucre. It 
was brought to Genoa, where it continued to be held in such 
veneration that twelve nobles were appointed to guard the 
tabernacle which contained it, each a month in turn. It was 
exhibited but once a year to the adoration of the crowd. Then 
a priest held it alofi by a cord, while its twelve guardians 
formed a circle around. In 1476 a law was enacted condemning 
to death whoever touched the holy emerald with any substance 
whatever. Unless the booty at Csesarea was very large, the 
Genoese did not make a bad investment in their emerald, for 
within fifty years the Jews lent them four millions of francs on 
its security. In 1809, among the other valuables borrowed of 
Italy by Napoleon, it travelled to Paris, where it remained until 
1815, when it was restored without difiiculty, broken, and as- 
certained to be glass. It is still preserved on account of its 
souvenirs, and as a curious ancient dish ; but Genoa has lost, 
in losing her belief in the relic, a capital of nearly a million of 
dollars. 

Cecilia, St., patron of music, and especially of sacred music. 
Honored in both the Eastern and Western Churches, she is 
counted as one of the four great Virgins of the Latin Church, 
and is named along with only a few others in the canon of the 
mass. Her festival is celebrated on November 22, the reputed 
date of hei* martyrdom. 

Authentic history has nothing to say about her. Legends 
are plentiful. The most familiar makes her a native of Rome, 
of noble parentage. Converted early to Christianity, she took a 
vow of perpetual virginity. But she was forced by her parents 
to marry a pagan, Yalerian. On the wedding night she took 
him into her confidence and told him that she had a guardian 
angel in perpetual attendance. He asked to see the angel, and 
she promised that the vision should be revealed to him if he 
became a Christian. So he sought out St. Urban, the Pope, and 
was baptized. Then his eyes were opened. The angel extended 
to the pair two crowns of roses and lilies, which he had brought 
from paradise and which were invisible save to believers. But 
their fragrance could not be concealed. It attracted the atten- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 199 

tion of Yalerian's brother Tibertius, who was himself converted. 
These three wrought many good deeds and wonders. Persecution 
followed. Valerian and Tibertius, with an officer named Maximus 
whom they had converted, were put to death. Their feast is 
commemorated on April 14. Subsequently Cecilia herself was 
brought before the wicked prefect Almachius and condemned to 
death in a hot bath. But her life was miraculously preserved. 
Then the headsman was called in, but the three strokes allowed 
by the law failed to do their work ; the half-beheaded martyr 
lived three days among her friends, and then died, bequeathing 
her house to Urban for a church. The date of her martyrdom 
is usually given as a.d. 230, which would place it within the 
reign of Alexander Severus, who was not a persecutor. But 
others substitute the year 180, which would be the time of 
Marcus Aurelius. 

It is certain, however, that there was a church dedicated to St. 
Cecilia which had fallen into decay in 821. Pope Paschal I. re- 
built it in that year. During the progress of the work the saint, 
it is said, appeared to him in a vision and told him where her 
body lay in the cemetery of Calixtus. He proceeded to the spot 
and found it, clothed in a robe of gold tissue, with linen cloths at 
the feet, dipped in her blood. With her were found the bodies 
of Yalerian, Tibertius, and Maximus. All these, together with 
the relics of Popes Urban and Lucius, lying in the adjoining 
cemetery of Pretextatus, were translated to St. Cecilia's Church, 
which is to-day known as Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, or St. 
Cecilia beyond the Tiber. 

When the church was again rebuilt in 1599 the body was 
again found, in a marvellous state of preservation, and the 
sculptor Stefano Maderno made it the model for his celebrated 
recumbent statue which now surmounts the tomb of the Virgin 
Martyr. 

Alban Butler explains that St. Cecilia has been accepted as the 
patron of church music " from her assiduity in singing the divine 
praises, in which, according to her iVcts, she often joins instru- 
mental music with vocal." But Herder asserts that the choice 
came from the misunderstanding of a passage in these Acts or 
legends. No saint, he says, ever came to renown more innocently 
than Cecilia ; for instead of being described as a musician she is 
said to have turned away from worldly music, to sing in her 
heart only. The passage in question, imjDortant in several con- 
nections, narrates that on the day of her marriage, et cantantihus 
organis ilia in corde suo solo domino decantabat, dicens, Fiat Bomine 
cor meum et corpus meum immacula.tum ut non fundar : or, in Cax- 
ton's translation, " and she heeryng the organes makyng melodye 
she sange in hir herte onelyc to God sayeng O Lord 1 beseche 



200 CURIOSITIES OF 

the that myn herte and body may be undefowled so that I may 
not be confounded." 

It is quite certain that the earlier artists did not depict her 
with musical instruments, neither in the rude drawings of the 
sixth or seventh century in the Catacombs, nor in the great 
mosaic in her church at Eome, dating from about 817, nor in 
the series of frescos of about the same date, nor in Cimabue's 
picture of nearly five centuries later. The earliest important 
representation is in the magnificent wing of Yan Eyck's Ghent 
altar-piece, now in the Berlin Museum, painted about 1435, if 
this be a saint, and not merely an angel, as some critics hold. 
Nearly a hundred years later, in 1513, came Eaphael's famous 
picture now preserved in Bologna. The moment chosen is that 
characterized by the passage from the legend already quoted. 
At the saint's feet lie the disregarded instruments of secular 
music, the flute, violin, etc., while in her hands is a small portable 
organ ; but she does not play it, being rapt in ecstasy as she sees 
through the opened heavens a beautiful choir and hears their 
song. Eaphael in his first drawing put instruments into the 
hands of the heavenly musicians, but the idea of ihe choir is far 
finer. After Eaphael's came other pictures of the saint as 
musician or patron. In the seventeenth centurj^, following the 
opening of the tomb in 1599, many painters were busy with the 
subject, especially Domenichino, who was in Eome during the 
enthusiastic period of the re-entombment. 

It must be remembered that during this period of two centuries 
the science and art of music were making great strides ; ideas of 
harmony were growing up as the organs were slowly improved, 
so that chords were endurable; but how far those were from 
modern ideas will be suggested by recalling the fact that Pales- 
trina was not born till after Eaphael's death. This growing art, 
whose most conspicuous usefulness and triumph were thus far in 
sacred song, deserved a patron saint quite as truly as the heathen 
arts of whose uses every one was now hearing, thanks to the 
revival of classical learning. And so, when a choice had once 
been made, men everywhere accepted it eagerly. In a French 
town early in the sixteenth century an association of musicians 
was put by the magistrate under the patronage of St. Cecilia, 
instead of St. Job's, as they had requested ; and in later times 
countless musical societies and some journals have borne her 
name. In Evreux, France, in 1571, musical festivals were 
inaugurated, with contests and prizes for compositions, and 
continued for some years. In England the celebrations of the 
saint's day, beginning in 1683, carried on pretty regularly for 
twenty years and intermittently in the next century, were 
opened by religious services in some church, and then the com- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 201 

pany adjourned to a hall for the further exercises. These 
included an ode on some subject relating to music, the music 
itself to which the ode was sung being written by some com- 
poser of eminence. The words were likewise written by poets 
of temporary and sometimes immortal repute. The most famous 
of all are Dryden's two odes. The first was written for the 
London celebration of 1687, and was set to music by Draghi. 

Dryden's second ode, entitled " Alexander's Feast, or the Power 
of Music," is one of the best know^n poems in the language : it 
was written for the festival of 1697, with music by Clarke ; later, 
Handel gave it a more fitting setting. Taine calls it "an admi- 
rable trumpet-blast, in which metre and sound impress upon the 
nerves the emotions of the mind ; a masterpiece of rapture and 
of art, which Victor Hugo alone has come up to." 

Addison's "Song for St. Cecilia's Day at Oxford" was written 
for the celebration in 1692, when he was only twenty years old. 
It is mainly an apostrophe to the saint to attend the celebration 
and assist her " vocal sons of harmony." 

Alexander Pope must not be left out of this short list, although 
it has been severely said that he wrote " in praise of an art of 
the principles of which he was ignorant, while to its eifects he 
was insensible." His ode for the London festival of 1717, written, 
however, in 1708, has some fine lines, but is far inferior to Dry- 
den's. (JSfew York Evening Post, November 21, 1896. See also 
Butler, Baring-Gould, Mrs. Jameson, etc.) 

The empty shrine of St. Cecilia in the Catacombs of St. Calix- 
tus is an object of special worship on the feast-day of the Virgin 
Martyr. On that occasion only the catacomb chapel is thrown 
open, and masses are said there in quick succession from early 
dawn till noon. A correspondent of the Baltimore Sun writing 
from Eome under date of November 22, 1895, gives this account 
of the celebration in that year : 

" It may be said that the majority of travellers and tourists at 
present visiting Eome might be met with here in this cemetery 
of Cahxtus, crowding the chapel of St. Cecilia and the galleries 
and corridors near it, and attending with silent awe to the cere- 
monies held here on this her feast-day beside the empty tomb of 
that popular saint. Year by year the crowds that throng this 
spot increase, and the decoration of the place becomes more 
elaborate. 

"This shrine, which once held the body of St. Cecilia, is a 
rudely shaped, spacious cave, cut betieath the soil, at the entrance 
to the catacomb, and it is to-day turned into a bower of beauty 
by the profusion of flowers with which it is decorated. From 
the conical shaped lucernario, or air-aperture, admitting faintly 
the pale rays of sunlight, great long festoons of odoriferous box 



202 CURIOSITIES OF 

branches, interwoven with pale pink and flaming red roses, droop 
in graceful outlines. The walls are of the crude tufa, — the vol- 
canic stone of the soil around here, — and resemble the sides of a 
quarry. To-day, the feast of St. Cecilia, they are ahnost hidden 
behind wreaths harmoniously interwoven of chrysanthemum and 
narcissus and nasturtium and tiny ferns. In the great cavity, or 
niche, opening into the wall on a level with the floor the flowers 
are most profuse. This was the spot where the remains of Cecilia 
were entombed. Here stood the huge marble sarcophagus, and 
within it the coflin of cypress wood in which she lay, just as she 
died. Lights and flowers — the choicest flowers of all — render 
this rude niche a fair shrine. And in the centre of it is a tiny 
statuette, in alabaster, copied after the renowned statue by Ste- 
fano Maderno, which lies beneath the high altar in the church 
of St. Cecilia in Trastevere, in Eome, at the very spot to which 
her remains were transferred in the ninth century. 

" Very few saints have been so popular with artists as Cecilia. 
On the rude wall, quite close to the place of her empty tomb, an 
early artist's loving hand has depicted his ideal of what she might 
resemble. The method of painting and other considerations 
known or observed by archaeologists lead them to the conclusion 
that this work of art should be attributed to the seventh century. 
It is in fresco, and occupies the place of a mosaic demolished at 
an earlier period. Some of the tiny cubes of mosaic are still to 
be seen inserted in the wall around this fresco. The picture is 
that of a young woman standing in a garden of flowers, tall red 
roses blooming on each side of her. The face is beautiful ; clear 
brown eyes, under high arched brows, look out calmly at the 
spectator. 

" Her rich golden hair, amid which large pearls gleam, is but 
a shade darker than the yellow nimbus which encircles her head. 
A crimson tunic, bound at the neck with many rows of pearls 
and other jewels in rich settings, covers the body and is gathered 
in at the waist by a cincture set with large pearls. The arms, 
enclosed in sleeves tight at the wrists, are held wide open, in that 
attitude of prayer so frequently met w4th in the catacomb figures 
known as Orantes. 

" For those who take an interest in the marvellous history of 
early Christian Eome, or who are touched by the charming asso- 
ciations of Ceciha with music, to-day's visitation of the catacomb, 
where her remains were placed after her martyrdom, is a mem- 
orable event. Many hundrecis of strangers from far-away lands 
crowded these narrow passages, with the numberless empty 
graves on either hand, where the darkness was dispersed by the 
many lighted candles placed in wooden sconces at intervals along 
the walls." 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 203 

Century, End of. When does a century end? "When does 
a new one begin ? This question agitated all the civilized world 
at the end of the eighteenth century. It is again disturbing it 
at the end of the nineteenth. 

The London Times in August, 1896, makes this contribution to 
the question : 

" Let us suppose a person to be writing a letter some eighteen 
months after the birth of Christ. How will he date his letter? 
Will he write, say, July 10, year 1, or July 10, year 2 ? If he 
writes the former, he will consistently hold that the next cen- 
tury begins January 1, 1900; if he writes the latter, he will hold 
that it begins January 1, 1901. The first view is based on the 
theory that the time specified is one year, six months, and nine 
days (and some hours, to be exact) after the birth of our Lord. 
The second view is based on the theory that the time specified is 
the second year, sixth month, and tenth day after the same event. 
According to the first view, February 10, 1896, means 1896 years, 
one month, nine days (and some hours) after the birth of Christ, 
and we are consequently in the 1897th year. According to the 
second view, February 10, 1896, means the 1896th year, second 
month, and tenth day, and we are consequently in the 1896th 
year. According to the first view, the number of the year is a 
cardinal number; according to the second view, it is an ordinal 
number. Both of these methods can conceivably be maintained, 
and, as stated above, both are in use. If we write a letter in 
the afternoon and wish to specify the exact time, we date, e.g.^ 
4.30 P.M., which means four hours and thirty minutes after twelve 
o'clock. There we use a cardinal number. We might equally 
well write ' in the fifth hour,' but as a fact we do not so write. 
Again, in walking, as soon as you reach the tenth milestone from 
a given starting-place you have completed ten miles. So when a 
boy is twelve years old we say he is in his thirteenth year, and 
he does not have to wait another year before getting into his 
teens. All these calculations are based on the reasonable ground 
that in concrete reckonings of time and space we do not begin 
with 1, but with 0, and that there is the same space between 
and 1 as there is between 1 and 2. The question then is, When 
we write 1896 are we using a cardinal or an ordinal number? It 
is clear that if we are using a cardinal number the last day of 
the century is December 31, 1899, while if we are using an ordinal 
number the last day of the century is December 31, 1900." 

The Times concluded in favor of December 31, 1900. Here 
are its reasons : 

" (1) In English we use the ordinal number in the day of the 
month ; we say Ist, 2d, 3d, etc., and not 1, 2, 3, etc. The name of 
the month also is equivalent to an ordinal number, because by 



204 CURIOSITIES OF 

February, e.g.^ we mean the second month. It would thus be 
illogical to suppose that the year is a cardinal number when the 
month and day are ordinal. (2) If we turn the year into Latin, 
it is an ordinal number, — viz., anno millesimo nonagesimo sexto. 
If it is objected that the Latin number may be ordinal and yet 
the English be cardinal, the obvious reply is that by this num- 
ber the Latin means the same year as we mean by 1896, and not 
what we mean by 1895. (3) The parallel tables of years made 
by chronologists in comparing one system of dating with an- 
other make 1 B.C. followed immediately by 1 a.d. Thus, in 
Zumpt's ' Annales' (to take a well-known book) the year of Eome 
(a.tj.c.) 753 corresponds with B.C. 1, and the next year, 754, with 
A.D. 1. And this is, of course, not an arbitrary calculation of 
Zumpt, but he is merely carrying on the accepted mode of reck- 
oning. Strictly speaking, a.d. (Anno Domini) is applicable only 
to this mode of dating, for if a cardinal number is used it should 
be p.c. (post Christum). On the whole, we may consider we are 
tolerably safe in holding that the next century begins on January 
1, 1901, though great names may be quoted on the other side." 

Cerealia, or Feast of Ceres. An ancient Eoman festival, 
lasting from the 12th to the 19th of April, or, according to some 
authorities, from the 7th to the 14th. This festival was cele- 
brated in honor of Ceres, whose wanderings in search of her 
lost daughter Proserpine were represented by women, clothed in 
white, running about with lighted torches. As the foreign Mega- 
lesia was especially appropriated by the nobles, so the festival of 
the Eoman goddess of agriculture belonged peculiarly to the 
plebeians ; they feasted one another at this time, as the nobles 
had done in the former festival. This was, indeed, a time of the 
greatest hilarity and merriment, and for this reason the celebra- 
tion of the Cerealia was omitted in times of public mourning, 
and it was regarded as a great breach of propriety when on one 
occasion the gladiatorial shows were given instead of the Circen- 
sian games which properly belonged to the festival. The last 
day, the 19th, was the great festival of the year for the common 
people. They crowded in the Circus or race-course, where nuts 
and other trifles were thrown among them ; and, besides the 
horse-races, it was the practice to set foxes loose in the Circus 
with lighted torches tied to their tails, — a symbol, it is thought, 
of the red blight or rust that burns up the corn. 

Both the Megalesia and the Cerealia were, like many other 
festivals, originally celebrated for only one day ; and when the 
Cerealia were extended over an entire week they were made to 
embrace the ancient festival of the Fordicidia, when a sacrifice 
was made to Tellus, goddess of the earth. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 205 

Chalitzah or Halitza. (From the Jewish word halitz, " to 
loosen," "to detach.") A Jewish ceremony which is fully de- 
scribed in the twenty-fifth chapter of Deuteronomy. " If breth- 
ren dwell together," says verse 5, " and one of them die, and 
have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without 
unto a stranger : her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and 
take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of a husband's 
brother unto her." The first-born of this marriage, the text 
goes on to explain, shall be named after the dead brother and be 
treated as his heir. But if the living brother refuse, he must 
submit to the Chalitzah : " Then shall his brother's wife come 
unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from 
off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, 'So 
shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's 
house.' " The loosening of the recalcitrant brother's shoe was a 
symbol that the widow took away in public court his right to 
her and to the possessions of the deceased. It will be remem- 
bered that anciently the possession of property was claimed by 
planting the foot upon it, and its sale was consummated by the 
original owners taking off his shoe and handing it to the new 
proprietor. Among the orthodox Jews the ceremony of the 
Chalitzah is still practised even in America. But in 1869 a Eab- 
binical convention of the Eeformed Jews declared that brother- 
in-law and sister-in-law were within the prohibited degrees of 
kindred, and that the entire custom which involved the Chalitzah 
was out of date. 

Champion of England. At the coronation of an English 
sovereign it was long usual for a man in armor to make his ap- 
pearance on horseback just as the second course had been served 
at the royal banquet in Westminster Hall. A herald proclaimed 
that if anybody dared to deny that the recently crowned mon- 
arch was not the lawful king of England " here was a cham- 
pion that would fight with him." At these words the champion 
would fling down his gauntlet. This ceremony was thrice re- 
peated. No one answering after the third defiance, the cham- 
pion found his way to the king's table, where his majesty drank 
to him and presented him with the gilt cup to keep as his own. 
By prescriptive right the perquisites of this important func- 
tionary were " one of the king's great coursers, with the saddle, 
harness, and trappings of cloth of gold ; one of the king's best 
suits of armor, with cases of cloth of gold ; and all other things 
belonging to the king's body when he goes into mortal battle ; 
and the gold cup in which the king drinks to him, with its 
cover." The arms provided for the royal champion at the coro- 
nation of King James II. in 1685 are very particularly enumer- 



206 CURIOSITIES OF 

ated : " A complete suit of white armor, a pair of gauntlets, a 
sword and hanger, a case of rich pistols, an oval shield with the 
champion's arms painted on it, and a gilded lance fringed 
about the handles. Also a field saddle of crimson velvet with 
breastplate and other caparisons for the horse, richly laden with 
gold and silver, a plume of red, white, and blue feathers, con- 
sisting of eighteen falls and a heron's top, another plume for the 
horse's head, and trumpet banners with the champion's own arms 
depicted on them." AH this magnificence was the lawful fee 
of the champion, with the understanding, however, that certain 
compensation money would be allowed upon re-delivery of the 
property to the Master of the jRoyal Armory for the time being. 

The office is a very ancient one, and is popularly supposed to 
have been brought to England by William the Conqueror. It 
was originally vested in the Marmion family, said to have been 
hereditary champions to the Dukes of Normandy long prior to 
the Canquest, and later became one of the privileges that went 
with their feudal manor of Scrivelsby, Lincolnshire. Upon the 
death without male issue of Philip de Marmion during the reign 
of Edward II., the manor of Scrivelsby became the property of 
his younger daughter. By marriage with her heiress, Margaret, 
Sir John Dyraoke acquired the estate and the hereditary oflSce, 
and duly performed the duties of champion at the coronation of 
Eichard II. Estate and office still remain in the Dymoke family. 
At the coronation of King William IV., however, and of Queen 
Victoria, the public banquet of the sovereign in Westminster 
Hall was dispensed with, as well as the services of the champion, 
in 1841 the then head of the Dymoke house being rewarded with 
a baronetcy in return for waiving his claim. The last appear- 
ance of the champion, therefore, was at the coronation of King 
George lY., on July 19, 1821. Walpole, writing to George Mon- 
tagu, says, "The champion acted his part admirably, and dashed 
down his gauntlet with proud defiance. His associates, Lord 
Effingham, Lord Talbot, and the Duke of Bedford, were woful. 
Lord Talbot [the Lord High Steward] piqued himself on back- 
ing his horse down the hall and not turning its tail towards the 
king ; but he had taken such pains to drill it to that duty that it 
entered backwards ; and at his retreat the spectators clapped. 
A terrible indecorum, but suitable to such Bartholomew Fair 
doings." 

There is no lack of stories setting forth the acceptance of the 
champion's challenge. Myths of this sort are associated with 
every eighteenth-century coronation that took place while a 
Pretender existed. Usually it is a woman who pushes her way 
through the crowd, takes up the champion's gauntlet, and leaves 
her own glove in its place. Sometimes the woman is described 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 207 

as old and infirm and supported by crutches, and at other 
times as young and beautiful. One version makes the Pretender 
himself, disguised in female attire, accompHsh the daring feat. 
Sir Walter Scott in " Eedgauntlet," it may be remembered, 
avails himself of this curious legend. Obedient to the command 
of her uncle, Eedgauntlet, Lilias, the heroine of the novel, on 
the third sounding of the champion's challenge rushes through 
the crowd, a lane being opened for her as though by word of 
command, picks up the " parader's gage," and leaves another in 
lieu thereof. 

Chantry. (Lat. capellania ; Fr. chapeUenie.) The old English 
name for an endowment of land or other revenues which were 
to be used for the maintenance of a priest to say a daily mass 
for the souls of the founder and his family or other benefactors. 
By extension the name came to be applied to the chapel, aisle, 
or part of an aisle in a church set apart for the offering of such 
masses. ^ 

Chantries formed the chief means of livelihood of thousands 
of priests during the Middle Ages. The salary was seldom 
more than seven or eight pounds a year. Yery rarely the priest 
had a little house and garden, but, as a rule, he had nothing 
better than a two-roomed hut, often with no fireplace beyond 
a space on the ground on which he burnt some dried turf, and 
with no chimney except a hole in the roof. A bench and a bed- 
stead were usually his entire furniture. This, however, was the 
case only where he held no other office and did not belong to a 
religious order. Although his duties were sometimes confined 
to his daily mass, he was often bound to act as village school- 
master, or even as master of the town grammar-school. Where 
the chantry priest said his mass in a cathedral, or in a collegiate, 
parochial, or other church where the divine office was sung, by 
the law of the English Church he was bound to assist at these 
services, which entailed some three or four hours in choir during 
the course of the day. Some foundations of chantries obliged 
the priest to act as a librarian. The celebrated Whittington, 
lord mayor of London, who established a library in the city, 
also founded a chantry, binding the priest to act as librarian. 

These were necessarih^ men of education; but there are 
reasons for believing that many chantry priests were put 
through a very simple course of theology, and were taught only 
Latin enough to enable them to say their mass and their office. 
Yery few of them had permission to preach, or faculties for 
hearing confessions. Sometimes, however, chantries were given 
to parish priests or their curates, and at other times to monas- 
teries. A large number of chantries were attached to cathedrals, 



208 CURIOSITIES OF 

and very many were founded by bishops and ecclesiastics. 
There were nearly one hundred chantries at St. Paul's Cathedral 
alone ; but some that were insufficiently endowed were united, 
and at the dissolution there were only fifty-four priests saying 
mass daily in the cathedral. 

Chantries were dissolved by Henry YIII. in 1545 and 1547, 
although he was inconsistently anxious to take a personal and 
selfish advantage of their possible benefits, as he willed that 
masses should be said for his own soul " forever," enjoining all 
his " heirs and successors who should be kings of this realm, as 
they would answer before Almighty God at the dreadful day of 
judgment," to carry out this bequest. 

Chanuckah, or Hunuka. (Heb., " Feast of Lights ;" known 
also as the Feast of Dedication.) A Jewish festival commencing 
on the 23d day of Kislev and commemorating the recapture of 
the temple and city of Jerusalem by the Maccabees. In the 
summer of 165 B.C. the forces of the Maccabees met a large army 
of the Syrians and vanquished them at Bethzur. After the triumph 
Maccabeus with his army entered Jerusalem, only to find the 
sacred city a place of desolation. The temple was deserted and 
defiled by heathen altars, the gates had been thrown down, and 
the sacred places desecrated. The pious work of purification 
was begun, and on the 25th of Kislev, 165 B.C., it was finished. 
The temple was once more consecrated, and the perpetual light, 
which Antiochus had quenched, was lighted. A jar of sacred oil, 
sealed with the ring of the high-priest, and sufficient for one 
day's consumption, was discovered just when it was wanted. 
Miraculously enough, it lasted for eight days. According to Jewish 
tradition, it was then decreed that every year the eight days 
beginning with the 25th of Kislev should be celebrated as a 
festival to commemorate the event. 

Among orthodox Jews the home celebration of Chanuckah 
takes this form. On the first night two waxen tapers are lighted, 
one as a torch, the other to symbolize the first day of the feast. 
On the second night after sundown a second taper is lighted, and 
so on successively until on the eighth night there are eight tapers, 
exclusive of the torch. A modern innovation is to start with a 
lighted taper for every member of the household, increasing the 
number by one every night. These tapers remain lighted until 
they burn out, and are not renewed. The inner meaning of the 
observance is the increasing strength of spiritual light and 
truth. In the Jewish synagogues there are prayers twice a 
day, at sunrise and at sunset. No fast or mourning is allowed 
during the eight days of the festival. 

The week prior to its commencement is given up to the prep- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 209 

aration of the wax tapers. These are made of genuine beeswax. 
The head of the family softens the yellow wax in hot water so 
that he can manipulate it, and moulds it into the form of tapers 
around pieces of twine. These candles are not so smooth and 
pretty as the store candles, but they are odd and quaint, and 
seem more appropriate to the ceremonies which accompany the 
lighting of them. These consist of the chanting of verses of 
praise. The verses are repeated by each male, and begin as 
follows : 

" Blessed art thou, Lord our God, King of the world, who hast 
sanctified us with thy commandments, and enjoined upon us to 
light the lamps of the Feast of the Dedication." 

The Jewish month of Kislev corresponds roughly with our 
December. Hence the 25th of Kislev may and sometimes does 
fall on the 25th of December, or at least our Christmas Day may 
be included in the week of Chanuckah. There are some Jews 
who have departed from the customs of their fathers sufficiently 
to buy the colored wax tapers which Christians use on their 
Christmas-trees, but your real orthodox Jew would look with 
horror upon the use of such candles. In his eyes it would be 
sacrilege. These candles are made of a composition by the 
hands of Grentiles. Possibly — the thought is almost too hor- 
rible to dwell upon — the composition may contain lard, the fat 
of the beast which is most repugnant of all animals to the 
Jew. 

The coincidence of dates has led to some confusion between 
Christmas and Chanuckah in the minds of the less instructed 
Jews, and it is the aim of the orthodox rabbi to keep constant 
guard against the Christian innovations which are only too 
likely to enter into the Hebrew ceremonial. 

Charivari (in local American usage frequently corrupted into 
Chivaree or Shivaree). A French word of uncertain origin, 
but probably onomatopoetie or imitative, signifying a mock 
serenade with horns, kettles, saucepans, etc. In France sere- 
nades of this sort were formerly inflicted upon newly married 
couples and upon persons who had made themselves socially 
or politically unpopular. The charivari still survives in spots 
through the provinces. The French inhabitants of Louisiana 
and of Canada brought the custom to America, and through 
them it was pretty generally distributed over the United States, 
where it is not yet altogether extinct. The same sort of con- 
cert in Germany is called Katzenmusik (" cats' music"), and in 
England Rough-music. 

The chivaree was originally extended both in this country 
and in France to all bridal couples, but more recently was limited 

14 



210 



CURIOSITIES OF 



to widows or widowers who remarried too hastily, to couples in 
whom an unusual disparity of age existed, or to such other 
unions as were either ridiculous or unpopular. Cases of notori- 
ous domestic infelicity or infidelity called forth similar expres- 




A Charivari in the Middle Ages. 
(From Wright's " Caricature and Grotesque.") 



sions of neighborly disapproval. In mediaeval times in many 
European countries a wife who beat her husband was placed 
upon a donkey, with her back to its head, its tail was grasped 
by the lickspittle spouse who had allowed himself to be trounced, 
and thus they paraded through the streets, greeted with shouts 
and cries and beatings of tin pans. It is not impossible that here 
was the germ idea of the charivari. Nor was it everywhere 
entirely superseded by the latter. So recently as 1867 the Cour- 
rier de VAin (quoted suh voce m La Eousse's Encyclopaedia) had 
this paragrajjh : " On January 22, in the little village of Turgon, 
a commune of Druillat, a large mob met together. Upon a 
large cart whereto a pair of horses were harnessed sat sundry 
individuals representing a court of justice, all in appropriate 
costumes : a president in a toque and a red gown, five judges in 
robes made of women's dresses or window-curtains, an officer of 
the public ministry dubbed Procureur de la Cornaillerie, two 
lawyers, a jury, two policemen, and two witnesses. Before the 
solemn tribunal came a husband and wife, represented by two 
other persons. The first was accused of having received, the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 211 

second of having given, sundry blows from a broomstick. In 
iront of a cart was a float whereon was the effigy of an ass, and 
on this ass. seated with his face to the tail, was a man bearing 
on his head the horns of a stag and in his hands a distaff" which 
he was pretending to spin." A mock judgment was just about 
to be delivered, when a party of genuine policemen burst on the 
scene and brought the actors before the real justice, who fined 
them forty sous apiece. 

At the beginning of the seventeenth centurj^ charivaris were 
forbidden by the Council of Tours under pain of excommunica- 
tion. The French parliament also thundered against "the 
tumults known as charivaris practised before the houses of those 
who remarried." But neither Church nor "State could put an 
end to the custom. 

On the 31st of July, 1751, the eve of the feast of St. Peter in 
Yinculis, whom the Parisian cobblers had taken as their patron, 
a number of charcoal-burners determined to amuse themselves 
ai the expense of such of their fellows as had married aged 
widows, and with this object to present them with bouquets 
amid a fanfare of musical instruments. The pretence was that 
these unfortunates ought to acknowledge the same patron as 
the cobblers, who dealt in second-hand leather. So they took 
two donkeys which they adorned with the implements of their 
trade and especially with old pieces of leather, old shoes, and 
pendent ox-feet. Each was ridden by a mummer similarly 
ornamented. A procession of charcoal-burners followed, walk- 
ing two by two. All were grotesquely accoutred in similar 
taste. The first cobbler before whose house they stopped re- 
ceived them good-humoredly and opened beer for them. The 
next took the affair as an insult to himself and his fellow-cobblers. 
He informed the syndic of the guild, the cobblers gathered in 
force and mobbed the procession, the two riders were thrown 
into prison, and the courts punished them for inciting to riot. 

Even so late as January, 1862, a troop of students of the 
Latin Quarter, having done their sibilatory best to damn Ed- 
mond About's play of " Gaetana" at the Odeon Theatre, marched 
to his house and celebrated a charivari under his windows. 

Alice T. Chase, in Americayi Notes and Queries, vol. i. p. 263, 
has some interesting notes on the American shivaree. " Twenty 
years ago," she says (she is writing in September, 1888), " it may 
be safely said, there were very few hamlets or rural communities 
of any size, from Pennsylvania west through the central belt of 
States, where the custom was not known and more or less fre- 
quently practised. Whether it ever gained much hold in Michigan, 
Wisconsin, and the northern States of the West, I cannot say, 
but I do know that it was most prevalent in Ohio, Indiana, and 



212 CURIOSITIES OF 

Illinois, and that in some instances colonies from these States 
transplanted it into Kansas and Nebraska. That it still prevails 
in many districts, I could bring abundant evidence. You speak 
of the custom as being French in its origin, as its name unques- 
tionably is. I thought that we owed it to the class known as 
' Pennsylvania Dutch,' a class made up of diligent and sober cit- 
izens, but altogether illiterate and unappreciative of the refine- 
ments of civilized life. The ' shivaree' is described at length in 
Eggleston's ' The End of the World.' I know of no other writer 
who has ever tried to convert its unpleasant vulgarity into dra- 
matic effect. It was a compliment extended to every married 
couj^le on their nuptial night, and consisted of a serenade made 
up of beating tin pans, blowing horns, ringing cow-bells, playing 
horse-fiddles, caterwauling, and, in fine, of the use of every dis- 
agreeable sound possible to make night hideous. This noise was 
kept up often for hours, or until the bridegroom made his ap- 
pearance and ' treated' the crowd. It was of no use for this luck- 
less individual to attempt to wear out the crowd by an obstinate 
refusal to appear. In that case the outside company would grow 
riotous, would hurl stones and fire blank cartridges through the 
windows, and after them, perhaps, dead cats and rotten eggs. 
Nor was it of any use for a couple to have the ceremony per- 
formed earlier in the day and start immediately on their bridal 
tour ; the ' shivaree' would and did keep, and was served up to 
them in all its unadulterated nastiness immediately upon their 
return. Of course the actors in the ' shivaree' business were 
mainly young men and boys. The older men of the community 
protested against it, and all respectable women utterly loathed 
it. But protests were of no avail, nor was it of any use to send 
a constable around the next morning with warrants to arrest the 
ringleaders. When brought before the judge they were simply 
dismissed with a trifling fine, and were quite ready to repeat the 
performance with emphasis on the occasion of the next wedding. 
The fact was, the young men, having few diversions in their 
quiet life, enjoyed these ' sprees,' and no one had moral courage 
enough to interfere and forbid their amusement. The decadence 
of this rough form of sport may be ascribed first to the general 
diffusion of education and civilized customs that has been going 
on of late years, and, secondly, to the great tendency of popu- 
lation toward cities. This latter fact has acted in two ways: 
it has taken the ringleaders away from the rural communities, 
causing the custom there to die a natural death, and these char- 
acters have not been able to transplant their amusement to their 
new abodes, since there they come under the supervision of police 
officers, whose business it is to interfere with such infractions of 
the peace. The '■ shivaree' custom was unquestionably a survival 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 213 

of semi-barbaric times ; the curious point to note is how nearly 
this barbarous custom touches our advanced civilization of the 
present day." 

The natural result of the chivaree in many remote parts of 
the United States has been to increase the number of secret 
marriages. No one can be blamed for reticence which avoids 
this harrowing experience. A correspondent of the JVew York 
Evening Post (Februar}- 6, 1897, p. 13) finds in the mountains of 
the Southern States " a general concealment of proposed connu- 
biality and nuptial intent. It maybe generally known that Zeb 
is ' keeping regular company' with Lize. Suddenly the town will 
be apprised of the fact that ' Zeb and Lize done got married lasb^ 
night.' This constitutes what might be called an anticipated 
surprise. 

"A man who was doing some work for me came to me one day 
at noon, and asked permission to be absent until ' quartering 
time,' half-past three o'clock. He said nothing to me or to his 
associates of his purpose. He returned promptly on time, to 
announce, in a casual and indifferent manner, that during his 
absence he had been married, and, with the little furniture pos- 
sessed by the pair, had settled in a cabin of his own. Again 
and again have I seen the same plan followed in other cases." 

Charlemagne, St., Festival of. (Fr. Fete de 8t. Charlemagne, 
or, colloquially, La Sainte Charlemagne.) The title under which 
the death- day of the Emperor Charlemagne is celebrated in all 
the higher French educational institutions. Charlemagne was 
born April 2, 742, and died January 28, 814. Of course his can- 
onization is merely a jocular and scholastic one. But he took a 
great interest in educational matters, and is the reputed founder 
of the Paris University. It may be added, however, as a curious 
coincidence, that Charlemagne was actually raised to saintship 
by one of the antipopes. 

On La Sainte Charlemagne all the students who have obtained 
the first place in their class once, or the second place twice, are 
invited to a grand breakfast, which is presided over by the prin- 
cipal, and at which all the professors assist. At dessert the 
principal makes an address. Then the scholars recite poems 
composed by them for the occasion. Formerly these were in 
Latin. Since the middle of the nineteenth century they have 
been in French. In 1896 another change was introduced, 
which Francisque Sarcey thus bemoans in the pages of the Cos- 
mopolitan Magazine for April, 1896 : 

" Up to this time it had always been the custom, when the 
breakfast of the pupils was ended, that all the personnel of the 
college should sit down to table, in their turn, and that the feast 



214 CURIOSITIES OF 

should begin over again for the professors. It was naturally out 
of the funds of the Institute that the expenses of the repast — 
which was of the most modest kind, indeed — were defrayed. 
But the university is not rich, and the Minister of Public Instruc- 
tion, with a view to economizing the educational fund, decided 
in his wisdom that this year the professors, after making the 
tour of the tables at which the students were celebrating the 
feast of the saint, should return to their homes to eat their break- 
fasts there. 

" Between ourselves, I do not believe that the professors re- 
gretted this measure. The breakfast, at a set price, was gener- 
ally indiiferent ; and the professors have so many opportunities 
every day of seeing and conversing with one another that the 
pleasure of sitting at the same table together to drink champagne 
at three francs a bottle was for them a very slight one. I know 
some of them who thanked the minister in their hearts for his 
niggardliness, which freed them from this extra duty. 

" But we, who regard the matter from another point of view, 
— a less selfish and a more general one, — cannot see without re- 
gret this first attack upon an ancient custom which contributed 
to the lustre and glory of the university. 

" You cannot conceive how in former times this fete of Charle- 
magne excited the minds and kindled the imaginations of all the 
students. To have one's St. Charlemagne, as they used to say in 
those days, was a sign that one was the first, or one of the first, 
in his class. It was a great honor, ardently desired. At the 
breakfast, which had been anticipated with joyful eagerness, the 
professors looked on with an indulgent eye while the gayety 
became more and more boisterous ; and they were ready to ex- 
cuse all the pranks played by the young people under the exhil- 
arating influence of the wine. 

'f I shall never forget how, after leaving one of these love-feasts 
in company with Edmond About, who was a little intoxicated by 
the champagne, the talking, and the shouting, he and I went into 
the bursar's garden, in which there was a large basin where gold- 
fish were darting about. Using our handkerchiefs as nets, we 
caught several of the poor little fishes and made ourselves a 
glorious dish of fried fish. 

" In the evening. — this was also a traditional custom, — as it 
was a holiday, the boys made appointments with one another to 
meet at the Theatre Frangais, whose manager they had requested 
to give a play appropriate for the occasion. They filled the 
house from top to bottom ; they applauded vociferously ; but if 
by chance any actor appeared who failed to please them, he was 
greeted with such a crowing of cocks and roaring of wild beasts 
as might make nature tremble. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 215 

" I greatly fear that the measure adopted by the minister, no 
doubt with good intention, has dealt a fatal blow to this ancient 
custom, which had already begun to fall into decadence. Now 
it is the professors w^ho have lost their part in it ; soon it will be 
the students." 

Charles, St. King Charles I. of England is held by High 
Church authorities to be the only saint oflScially enrolled in her 
calendar by the Church of England since the Eeformation. The 
anniversary of the date on which he was beheaded by order of 
Cromwell and the Long Parliament (January 30, 1649) is cele- 
brated by a mass. The vespers of a martyr are sung on the 
preceding evening. 

The ritualists hold that King Charles I. laid down his life as 
a martyr for the Church of England. The argument, briefly 
stated, is that if Charles had consented to the abolition of 
Episcopacy by the Puritan Parliament his life would have been 
spared. 

This argument, of course, rejects the more common belief that 
in fighting for his bishops Charles was fighting for his kingdom. 
"No Bishop! No King!" was the programme of the Puritans. 
The ritualists will not allow that any alloy of selfishness entered 
into the motives of Charles I. 

Accepting their argument, it is obvious that Charles deserved 
to be canonized. But the ritualists go further. They insist that 
he was actually canonized, and by the only authority within the 
Episcopal Church which is empowered to do so, — i.e., by Convo- 
cation. They acknowledge that this is the only instance in 
which Convocation has ever exercised the power, but they assert 
that the power itself is, has been, and always will be resident 
within the Church, through its representative. Convocation. 
Their presentation of the case is full of curious ecclesiastical 
interest. 

On May 29, 1660, eleven years after the martyrdom of Charles 
I., his son rode back into power as King Charles II. Early next 
year Convocation — the clergy, Lords, and Commons — united 
with Charles II. in appointing a special service of prayer with 
fasting " to be used yearly on the 30th of January, being the 
day of the martyrdom of the blessed King Charles the First." 
On the Prayer Book calendar the name of " King Charles, Mar- 
tyr," was entered at January 30. The prayer applying specially 
to the new martyr ran as follows : 

" O Lord, we offer unto Thee all praise and thanks for the 
glory of Thy grace that shined forth in Thine anointed, our 
sovereign. King Charles, and we beseech Thee to give us all 
grace by a careful, studious imitation of this Thy blessed saint 



216 CURIOSITIES OF 

and martyr, and all other saints and martyrs that have gone be- 
fore us, that we may be made worthy to receive benefits by their 
prayers, which they, in communion with the church catholic, 
offer up unto Thee for that part of it here militant, through Thy 
Son, our blessed Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen." 

Here, then, are the documents in the case : Convocation 
characterized the death of Charles as a " martyrdom ;" it caused 
him to be enrolled in the calendar as "King Charles, Martyr;" 
it set aside a special day for his commemoration, that day being, 
as was the old custom of the Catholic Church, the death-day 
and not the birthday ; and it sanctioned a prayer in which King 
Charles was spoken of as God's " blessed saint and martyr." 
Nothing can be clearer than that Convocation, by the legitimate 
exercise of a function which it can legitimately claim, enrolled 
King Charles I. in the calendar of its saints and martyrs, — in 
other words, canonized him. 

The Eev. John Keble, who wrote that once popular series of 
hymns, " The Christian Year," was evidently of this opinion. 
His hymn for January 30 begins as follows : 

Our own, our Koyal Saint, — 
True son of our dear mother, early taught 

"With her to worship, and for her to die. 
Nursed in her aisles to more than kingly thought, — 

Oft in her solemn hours we dream thee nigh. 

Nor was there wanting the confirmation of miracles to show 
that heaven approved of the honors showered upon one of its 
favorite sons. A handkerchief which had been dipped in his 
blood at the execution was found to have antitoxine qualities. 
Pilgrims who visited the tomb of the martyr in St. George's 
Chapel at Windsor, where he was buried by permission of Oliver 
Cromwell, testified that they had been relieved of scrofula, or 
king's evil. For more than a century after the Eestoration 
strict tories and Church of England men kept the 30th of Jan- 
uary as a day of fasting and humiliation. 

The first Lord Holland used to relate that during the lifetime 
of his father, Sir Stephen Fox, upon the return of every 30th 
of January the wainscot of the house was hung with black, and 
no meal of any sort was permitted until after midnight. This 
attempt at rendering the day melancholy by fasting had a 
directly contrary effect on the children ; for the housekeeper, 
fearing that they might suffer through so long an abstinence 
from food, used to give the little folks clandestinely as many 
comfits and sweetmeats as they could eat. Thus Sir Stephen's 
intended fast was turned into a juvenile feast. (^Correspondence of 
C, J. Fox, edited by Earl Eussell.) 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 217 

There were others also among their adult contemporaries who 
brought revelry into the day of mourning, and did so of malice 
prepense. For there were certain enemies of the Church of 
England and admirers of Cromwell, who formed themselves 
into a secret society called the Calves'-Head Club which met 
every 30th of January to rejoice over the death of the Martyr- 
King. Little is known about the early history of this organiza- 
tion. That little is to be gleaned from an anonymous pamphlet 
of no great credibility entitled " The Secret History of the 
Calves'-Head Club, or the Eepublicans Unmasked" (second 
edition, 1703). The author asserts that " a certain active Whig" 
had informed him " that Milton and other creatures of the 
Commonwealth had instituted this club (as he was informed) in 
opposition to Bishop Juxon, Dr. Sanderson, Dr. Hammond, and 
other divines of the Church of England, who met privately 
every 30th of January, and, though it was under the time of 
the usurpation, had compiled a private form of service of the 
day, not much different from what we now find in the Liturgy." 
In the eighth edition, published in 1713, are added sonie particu- 
lars as to the manner in which the day was spent: f Their bill 
of fare was a large dish of calves' heads, dressed several ways, 
by which they represented the king, and his friends who had 
suffered in his cause ; a large pike with a small one in his mouth, 
as an emblem of tj^ranny ; a large cod's head, by which they 
pretended to represent the person of the king singly; a boar's 
head, with an apple in its mouth, to represent the king. . . . 
After the repast was over, one of the elders presented an Eikon 
Basilike, which was with great solemnity burned upon the table." 
Several thanksgiving songs or anthems are included, with the 
information that they were sung at the anniversary meetings 
in 1693-97. Here are a few agreeable references to Charles I. 
from the 1696 anthem : 

This monarch wore a peaked beard 

And seem'd a doughty hero. 
As Dioclesian innocent, 

And merciful as Nero. 

The Church's darling implement, 

And scourge of all the people, 
He swore he'd make each mother's son 

Adore their idol steeple ; 

But they, perceiving his designs. 

Grew plaguy shy and jealous. 
And timely chopt his calves' head off, 

And sent him to his fellows. 

The first note of public opposition to the anniversary as a 
church festival was sounded in March, 1772, by Mr. Montague. 



218 CURIOSITIES OF 

He led an attempt in the House of Commons to repeal so much 
of the Act of 12 Charles II. c. 30 as related to the ordering the 
30th of January to be kept as a day of fasting and humiliation. 
Mr. Montague declared his motive to be the abolition of any 
absurdity from Church as well as State. He said that he saw 
great and solid reasons for abolishing the observance of that day 
by the Church, and hoped he should not be deemed to be speak- 
ing too harshly if he should brand the prescribed service with 
the name of impiety, particularly in those parts where Charles 
I. is likened to the Saviour of mankind. On a division, there 
being for the motion 97, and against it 125, it was lost by a 
majority of 27. 

On the very second day of her reign. Queen Yictoria, taking 
advantage of the addition to the Prayer Book of a special 
service " to be recited on the twentieth of June, being the 
anniversary of the beginning of the Present Glorious Eeign," 
promulgated the following order: 

" Our will and pleasure is that these four forms of prayer and 
service made for the fifth of November, the thirtieth of 
January, the twenty-ninth of May, and the twentieth of June, 
be forthwith printed and published and annexed to the book of 
Common Prayer and liturgy of the United Church of England 
and Ireland, to be said yearly on the said days in all cathedrals 
and collegiate churches and chapels, in all chapels of colleges 
and halls within our universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and 
Dublin, and of our colleges of Eton and Winchester, and in all 
parish churches and chapels within those parts of our United 
Kingdom called England and Ireland. 

" Given at our court at Kensington, the twenty-first day of 
June, 1837, in the first year of our reign. 

" By Her Majesty's command. J. Eussell." 

Thus it is seen that one of the very first acts of Queen 
Yictoria was to republish and declare the " Martyrdom of King 
Charles the First," and, as the head of the Established Church, 
to enjoin the use of this service, as appropriate fur the anniver- 
sary of his death. 

A little over two decades later the opposition to the festival 
finally triumphed. At the meeting of Convocation in 1857 Dr. 
Milman, Dean of St. Paul's, expressed doubts as to the propriety 
in the present day of the special services for King Charles's 
Martyrdom, the Gunpowder Treason, and the Eestoration. His 
views were supported by Dr. Martin, chancellor of the diocese 
of Exeter. In 1858 Lord Stanhope brought the matter before 
the House of Lords, moving an address to the queen on the 
subject. It was then stated that great objection to the ser- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 219 

vices prevailed, and that many clergymen, including the dean 
and chapter of Canteibury Cathedral, refused to read them, and 
already omitted them, without waiting for royal or parliamen- 
tary sanction to the course they adopted. Lord Stanhope was 
supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of 
London and Oxford, the Earl of Derby, and other peers on both 
sides of the House. A similar address was voted by the House 
of Commons. 

On January 17, 1859, Queen Victoria took matters into her 
own hands and issued a royal warrant abolishing the three ser- 
vices. But it was perceived that, these services being appointed 
by Acts of Parliament, clergymen might feel embarrassed by the 
abolition being only the result of a royal warrant. A short Act 
of Parliament was therefore introduced and passed the same 
session, repealing the objectionable statutes. The services were 
accordingly removed from the Prayer Book. 

Not yet do the High Churchmen yield. Charles's removal 
from the calendar was effected not by Convocation, or the clergy. 
Lords, and Commons combined, but by Queen Victoria and the 
House of Commons alone. It was, therefore, they contend, 
illegal and of no effect. January 30 is still devoted rightfully 
to the commemoration of St. Charles's martyrdom, they say, 
and unless the removal from the calendar is sanctioned by Con- 
vocation, an unlikely contingency, King Charles, Martyr, is en- 
titled to the commemoration decreed to him by Convocation in 
1661. 

In 1894 the Hon. Mrs. Greville ]N"ugent founded the Society of 
King Charles the Martyr, which numbers among its members 
many persons of rank and influence. The prospectus sets forth 
that the object of the society is " intercessory prayer for the 
defence of the Church of England against the attacks of her 
enemies," and continues, — 

" The society is emphatically non-political. It is to the Church 
in her spiritual aspect — the kingdom that is not of this world — 
that its attention is principally directed, though it is prepared 
also to resist anything that may tend to impair the usefulness 
of the Church in the world. Those who join the society do not, 
however, pledge themselves to more than the weekly use of the 
annexed prayers (the first of which, being adapted from the 
Eikon Basilike, may be regarded as the words of King Charles 
himself), and to the observance in some way of the 30th of Jan- 
uary, the day of the king's death (which will be the anniversary^ 
of the society), especially by attending, when possible, in any 
church where they have been revived, the services formerly ap- 
pointed for the day in the Book of Common Prayer." 

It is proposed to establish the society in all parts of the globe 



220 CURIOSITIES OF 

where the Episcopal Church exists, and nowhere is membership 
to conflict with the existing form of government. 

There are four churches in England dedicated to King Charles 
the Martyr. In New York city the church of St. Mary the 
Virgin and in Philadelphia the Church of the Evangelists cele- 
brate the annual return of the martyrdom. A devotional picture 
of the saint was solemnly unveiled in 1896 in the Philadelphia 
church in the presence of Rt. Rev. William Stevens Perry, D.D., 
Bishop of Iowa and Historiographer of the American Church, 
who delivered a glowing panegyric, and of numerous prominent 
Anglican ecclesiastics. The day was celebrated with equal pomp 
in London. At the Anglican Church of St. Margaret Pattens a 
solemn eucharist was celebrated. The altar and sacrarium were 
vested in crimson and gold, the altar being ablaze with tapers, 
while the rest of the church was darkened. Around the altar 
were hung banners, one having a portrait of King Charles bear- 
ing the martyr's palm-branch, with the words -' Sanctus Carolus, 
Rex et Martyr," embroidered in gold. The celebrant was attired 
in a crimson chasuble embroidered.with silver, and was attended 
by a number of acolytes in scarlet cassocks and small caps. A 
choir sang, the anthem being " Be thou faithful unto death." The 
service was read from Laud's Book of Common Prayer, that ulti- 
mately cost Charles his head. The congregation was dressed in 
mourning and wore white Stuart roses. It included the Order of 
the White Rose, the Order of St. Germain, the Jacobite Club, the 
Legitimist Club, the Thames Valley Legitimists, the Society of 
King Charles the Martyr, and other Stuart organizations. In 
the evening there was a choral service, the clergy and choir 
marching round the church in procession with the banners. A 
great many wreaths of magnificent flowers, the inscriptions on 
which had first been examined by the government officials, were 
hung about King Charles's statue in Trafalgar Square. One 
was inscribed "Remember," another, "I go from a corruptible 
to an incorruptible crown." A Scottish society sent a wreath 
tied with a tartan silk ribbon, with the legend "In memory of 
the great-grandson of King Charles I., Charles Edward, died 
January 31, 1788. Wha wadna follow thee, King of the Hie- 
land heart, bonnie Prince Charlie?" The Legitimist Club at- 
tached to a laurel wreath a long prayer, beseeching that the 
guilt of the king's innocent blood might not be laid to the 
people of the land. 

The vault in which King Charles's coffin is interred was last 
opened in 1813, on the occasion of the funeral of the Duchess of 
Brunswick, the sister of George III. Before the reclosing of 
the vault search was made for the coffin of King Charles, in the 
presence of the Prince Regent. When found it was partially 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 221 

opened. Sir Henry Halford, one of the witnesses, published in 
the same year " An account of what appeared on opening the 
coffin of King Charles I." (1813), from which it appears that the 
body was found in good condition among the gums and resins 
employed to preserve it : " At length the whole face was disen- 
gaged from its covering. The complexion of the skin was dark 
and discolored. The forehead and temples had lost little or 
nothing of their muscular substance ; the cartilage of the nose 
was gone; but the left eye in the first moment of exposure was 
open and full, though it vanished almost immediately, and the 
pointed beard was perfect. The shape of the face was a long 
oval; many of the teeth remained. . . . When the head had 
been entirely disengaged from the attachments which confined 
it, it was found to be loose, and without any difficulty was taken 
up and held to view. . . . The back part of the scalp was per- 
fect, and had a remarkably fresh appearance ; the pores of the 
skin being more distinct, as they usually are when soaked in 
moisture; and the tendons and filaments of the neck were of 
considerable substance and firmness. The hair was thick at the 
back part of the head, and in appearance nearly black. ... On 
holding up the head to examine the place of separation from the 
body, the muscles of the neck had evidently retracted them- 
selves considerably ; and the fourth cervical vertebra was found 
to be cut through its substance transversely, leaving the surfaces 
of the divided portions perfectly smooth and even." 

Byron, it may be noted, has some virulent lines " On the oc- 
casion of his Eoyal Highness the Prince Eegent being seen 
standing between the coffins of Henry VIII. and Charles I. in 
the royal vault at Windsor :" 

'Famed for contemptuous breach of sacred ties, 
By headless Charles see heartless Henry lies ; 
Between them stands another sceptred thing — 
It moves, it reigns — in all but name, a king : 
Charles to his people, Henry to his wife, 
In him the double tyrant starts to life : 
Justice and Death have mixed their dust in" vain, 
Each royal vampire wakes to life again. 
Ah, what can tombs avail ! since these disgorge 
The blood and dust of both — to mould a George I 

Eobert Southey enters in his " Common-Place Book," " I find 
in a newspaper, ' The sheet in which Charles's head was received 
is preserved with the communion plate in the church at Ash- 
burnham, and his watch also. The blood with which the sheet 
was covered is now almost black.' " The entry is without date : 
the newspaper quoted was probably very old. In the Scots Mag- 
azine for October, 1743, occurs the following: '^ Died, The Hon. 



222 CURIOSITIES OF 

Bertram Ashburnham. He bequeathed to the clerk of the par- 
ish of Ashburnham and his successors forever the watch which 
King Charles I. had in his pocket at the time of his death, and 
the shirt he then wore, which has some drops of blood on it. 
And they are deposited in the vestry of the said church." A 
correspondent of Notes and Queries (1854), quoting the above, 
inquires concerning the relics. He obtains no satisfactory reply 
beyond a reference to Horsfield's "Sussex" (1835), wherein may 
be read that ''in the chancel of Ashburnham Church are kept, 
in a glass case, lined with red velvet, some relics of the unfortu- 
nate Charles I. These consist of the shirt with ruffled wrists 
(on which are a few faint traces of blood) in which he was be- 
headed ; his watch, which at the place of execution he gave to 
Mr. John Ashburnham ; his white silk drawers ; and the sheet 
that was thrown over the body after the execution. These arti- 
cles have certainly been carefully preserved. Long were they 
treasured up as precious relics, fit only to be gazed upon by the 
devotees of the Icon Basilike. At length, however, the charm 
was broken by Bertram Ashburnham, Esq., who in 1743 be- 
queathed them to the clerk of the parish and his successors for- 
ever, to be exhibited as great curiosities." Mr. Horsfield adds, 
in a note, that " the superstitious of the last, and even of the 
present, age have occasionally resorted to these relics for the 
cure of the king's evil." An objection has been taken to the 
watch alleged to have been given to Mr. Ashburnham, by reason 
of the absence of any proof that Mr. Ashburnham was near the 
king on the morning of the execution : certainly he was not 
upon the scaffold. 

The difficulty in the way of acknowledging the genuineness 
of many of these royal relics arises from the fact that the 
owners invariably maintain that they were given away by the 
king on the scaffold. To accept all these statements would be to 
look upon Charles as a sort of gallows-bird Santa Claus dis- 
tributing an infinite number of rings, watches. Bibles, prayer- 
books, and even .backgammon-boards and sets of bed-hangings. 

Undoubtedly he did have a fondness for accumulating watches 
and clocks, many of which, though they did not all accompany 
him to the scaffold, are still extant. In Sir Thomas Herbert's 
" Memoirs of the Last Two Years of the Eeign of that Unpar- 
alleled Prince of ever blessed Memory, King Charles I." (1702) 
appears a particular account of the various gifts presented by 
the king immediately before his execution. His gold watch was 
confided to Herbert — who, with Bishop Juxon, was in almost 
sole attendance upon the king after his trial — to be delivered to 
the Duchess of Eichmond. A small silver watch that hung by 
his bedside was carried by Herbert towards the place of ex- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 223 

ecution. While passing through the garden into the park the 
king "asked Mr. Herbert the hour of the day, and taking the 
clock into his hand gave it to him and said, 'Keep this in 
memory of me,' which Mr. Herbert kept to his dying day." 
This watch descended as an heirloom to William Townley Mit- 
ford in 1865. In Brayley and Britton's " Description of Cheshire" 
mention is made of another watch at Yale Eoyal, the residence 
of Lord Delamere, which it was stated had also belonged to 
King Charles, and was given by him to Bishop Juxon on the 
scaffold. This watch had come into the Cholmondeley family 
by an intermarriage with the Cowpers of Overleigh, near 
Chester, who were related to the Juxon family. 

The king's Prayer Book is now in the possession of the Evelyn 
family, of Wotton Park, near Dorking, descendants of the great 
John Evelyn. The royal Bible was given by the king to Sir 
Thomas Herbert. In the margin of the book " he had with his 
own hand written many annotations and quotations, and he 
charged that the same should be given to the prince so soon as 
lie returned." Herbert's account differs from the usual narrative, 
in which the Bible is bestowed by the king upon Bishop Juxon. 
In that prelate's hands he also deposited his George of the Order 
of the Carter, diamond, and seals, to be transmitted to his eldest 
son. The word " Eemember" was presumed to have reference 
to this charge. The Parliament, however, prohibited Juxon's so 
dealing with the Ceorge. A pearl which he always wore in his 
ear, as may be noticed in his portrait on horseback by Yandyck, 
was taken out after his death, and (in Walpole's time) was in 
the collection of the Duchess of Portland, attested by the hand- 
writing of his daughter the Princess of Orange, and was given 
to the Earl of Portland by King William. In another account 
there is a little variation : " Charles wore pearl ear-rings, and 
the day before his execution took one of great value from his 
ear and gave it to Juxon in charge for his daughter the Princess 
Eoyal." 

Cherries, Feast of. A holiday occasion, now well-nigh 
obsolete, which for centuries was observed in Hamburg, Ger- 
many, in the early summer, by processions of little children, all 
dressed in white, who passed through the streets, each one 
bearing in the right hand a bunch of cherries. The custom was 
said to celebrate an event in the siege of Hamburg by the 
Hussite warrior Procopius the Great in 1432. He invested the 
city with his army and waited for the inhabitants to be starved 
into surrender. In this dilemma somebody proposed that an 
attempt be made to soften the hearts of the enemy by sending 
out the city's children to ask for food and mercy. The* plan was 



224 CURIOSITIES OF 

carried out, and the surprise of the outlying hosts may be 
guessed when they saw the gates of the city open to let forth, 
not armed soldiers with helmets and swords, but a long line of 
children. Every one of this strange army was dressed in white, 
the elder ones leading the way, and the tiny toddlers holding 
their hands trustfully, wondering what it all meant, but showing 
no fear. When the rough soldiers outside heard the pattering 
of the little feet and saw the white-robed innocent throng sur- 
rounding their tents, they thought of their own children at 
home, and felt only love and kindness for their little visitors. 
They looked around for something to give them, and, as the 
trees of the great orchards in which they lay encamped were 
heavj' with their burden of cherries, the soldiers broke off big 
branches of the fruit and gave one to every child and sent the 
little ones back to their parents with a message of peace and 
good will. So the city was saved by the children. 

Cherry Feast, or Cherry Fair. Festivals which are still 
held in Worcester and some other parts of England in the 
cherry-orchards, and " are almost always," says Halliwell 
Phillipps, "the resort for lovers and the gay portion of the 
lower classes." Hence they " may appropriately retain their 
significant type of the uncertainty and vanity of things of this 
world." His allusion is to Gower's lines in the " Confessio 
Amantis," book vi. : 

Sometime I draw unto memoire 
How sorwe may nought ever last, 
And so Cometh hope in atte last 
When I none other fode know, 
And that endureth hut a throw, 
Right as it were a chery test. 

Chester Cup. An annual race run in the first week in May 
on the race-course in Chester known as the Eoodee or Eoodeye, 
an equivalent of Eood-Tsle, because before the modern improve- 
ments the course was surrounded by water. The cup is the 
final survival through many changes of the mediaeval Chester 
Mysteries. These were performed on Shrove Tuesday. The 
festivities then consisted not only of the Mystery Plays them- 
selves, full of quaint yet not intentionally irreverent burlesques 
of scriptural episodes, but also of sundry " lawdable exercises," 
including homages offered to or by the various guilds. 

Conspicuous among these were two which constitute the re- 
mote originals of the Chester cup. All persons married within 
the past year "did offer unto the Companye of Drapers in 
homage a ball of salte, of the quantitie of a boule, profitable for 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 225 

few uses or purposes." This ball of salt was afterwards changed 
into a silver arrow, a meet prize for archers, and contended for 
by them on the Eoodee, the pleasant meadow which served in 
winter for the pasture of cows, in summer as a recreation-ground 
for the good citizens. 

The saddlers' old homage to the drapers is thus set forth : 
"Also whereas the company and occupation of the Sadlers 
within the cittie of Chester did yearely by custom, time out of 
the memory of man, did the same day (Shrove Tuesday), hower, 
and place, before the said mayor unto the Companye of Drapers 
in Chester, did offer, upon tlie truncheon of a staffe or speare. a 
certain homa2;e, culled the Sadlers' ball, being a ball of salte of 
the bignes of a bowle, which was profitable ior few uses and 
purposes as it was, the which ball the said Drapers did cast up 
among the throunge, to get it who could, in which throunge 
muchhurt was done. The said mayor and aldermen with con- 
sent of the drapers aforesaid did alter and change : that in place 
thereof the said Company of Sadlers should offer before the 
mayor unto the Drapers a bell of silver, the which bell was or 
dained also to the reward for that horse which with speede run- 
ning there should run before all others, and then presentlye 
should be given the same day and place." Thus the race was 
instituted, and in due time, through the influence of the Puri- 
tan wave which overwhelmed England in the hundred years 
ending with the Eestoration, the pagan associations of Shrove 
Tuesday were got rid of by transferring the horse-race to St. 
George's Day. By 1609 w^e find that the drapers and saddlers 
have vanished into night, and the contest on the Eoodee be- 
comes St. George's race. The change was due somewhat to 
the public spirit of Mr. Eobert Ambrye, ironmonger, sometime 
sheriff of Chester, who at his own cost offered three silver 
hells, the first and second best to be given to the first and second 
horses in the initial race, the third bell to be contested for sepa- 
rately in another race. 

St. George's races were celebrated with great pomp and cere- 
mony. The programme of the civic march to the Eoodee is 
minutely given in the Harleian MSS. First marched men in 
ivy, with black hair and beards " veryowgly to behoulde," with 
garlands and clubs. The duty of these " salvage men" — favorite 
characters in all masques and mummings — was to scatter fire- 
works abroad to make " way for the rest of the showe :" doubt- 
less an effectual method of getting through a crowd. Follow- 
ing these came St. George on horseback, with his attendants; 
then Fame, also on horseback, with a trumpet and an oration 
ready prepared for delivery. Next came Mercury, " to descend 
from above in a cloude, his winges and all other matters in pompe 

16 



226 CURIOSITIES OF 

and heavenlie musicke with him, and after his oration spoken to 
ryde on horsebacke with the musicke before him." Then fol- 
lowed one called Chester, "with an oration and drums," and 
others bearing the arms of the king, and of the Prince of 
Wales, Earl of Chester. Close behind these rode the prize- 
bearers. The Cestrian population at the commencement of the 
seventeenth century must have had a tremendous appetite for 
speech-making, for Peace, Plenty, Envy, and Love all delivered 
their orations before the mayor and his brethren in their best 
apparel of scarlet. 

A further change was effected in 1623 by Mr. John Brereton, 
the mayor, who substituted a single bell, of more value than all 
the former ones put together, which was "to be runne for on 
St. George's Day forever." 

Why and when St. George's Day, like Shrove Tuesday, was 
abandoned for the first week in May, or under what circum- 
stances the bell was changed for a silver cup, there is no evidence 
to show ; in fact, a strange darkness hangs over the Poodee 
from Mayor Brereton's time. The rectification of the calendar 
is perhaps the best explanation of the former fact, as the first 
week in May comes very near old St. George's Day. 

Chicago Day. The anniversary of the great fire in Chicago 
(1871) is celebrated in that city on October 9. " There has 
been of late years," says Harper's Weekly for October 24, 1896, 
" a growing tendency to make it a civic holiday, and its ob- 
servance has been conducted upon an increasingly elaborate 
scale. This year is the twenty-fifth since the devastation of the 
city, and the celebration was carried out upon a scale far beyond 
anything hitherto attempted." It will be remembered that this 
was in the very thick of the McKinley-Bryan Presidential cam- 
paign. It was inevitable, therefore, that the celebration should 
have a political coloring. Both parties put forth their best efforts 
to make display of their strength. The great day parade, in 
which about seventy thousand citizens took part, was a sound 
money demonstration of the most impressive sort. The business 
portion of the city was given up to it, and all vehicles were ex- 
cluded from the streets, as in Paris on the Jour de la Eepublique. 
The advocates of repudiation made no attempt to take part in 
this parade, but tried to offset its effect by the organization of a 
sort of silver side-show in the evening. A procession of about 
twelve thousand people was formed, and made all the noise it 
could, but the anticlimax was too obvious. 

Christmas. The reputed anniversary of the birth of Jesus 
Christ, December 25, and as such one of the greatest festivals 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 227 

of the Protestant, Catholic, and Greek Churches. It is essen- 
tially a day of thanksgiving and rejoicing, — a day of good cheer. 
Though Christians celebrate it as a Christian festival, though to 
them it is the anniversary of the most solemn event in all 
history, the meeting of heaven and earth in the birth of the 
God-Man, the festivities that mark the epoch are part of the 
universal history of the race. In pagan Eome and Greece, in 
the days of the Teutonic barbarians, in the remote times of 
ancient Egyptian civilization, in the infancy of the race East 
and West and North and South, the period of the winter sol- 
stice was ever a period of rejoicing and festivity. Even the 
Puritanism of the Anglo-Saxon has not been equal to the task 
of defending Yule-tide from a triumphant inroad of pagan rites 
and customs, so that the evangelical churchman who is shocked 
to see flowers decorating the sanctuaries at Easter would be 
sorry to miss the scarlet berries that hang there at Christmas, 
so that even austerest lovers of the plain-song tolerate and even 
welcome " quips and cranks and wreathed smiles" in their Christ- 
mas carols, so that joviality and merrj^making are the order of 
the day at Christmas banquets, — a joviality sanctified and made 
glorious by good will to all men. Yet the holly and the mistle- 
toe are a survival of ancient Druidical worship, the Christmas 
carol is a new birth, purified and exalted, of the hymns of the 
Saturnalia, the Christmas banquet itself is a reminiscence of the 
feasts given in honor of ancient gods and goddesses, when, as 
Cato said of the analogous feasts in imperial Eome, commemo- 
rating the birth of Cybele, the prospect that drew one thither 
was "not so much the pleasure of eating and of drinking as 
that of finding one's self among his friends and of conversing 
with them." Nay, the very idea of the Child-God, which gives 
its meaning to the Feast of the Nativity, was prefigured and 
foretold not only in the vaticinations of sibyl, seer, and prophet, 
but in the infant gods of the Greek, the Egyptian, the Hindoo, 
and the Buddhist, which in different ways showed the rude 
efforts of the earlier races to grasp the idea of a perfect human 
child who is also God. 

Great as the feast is, however, nobody knows anything defi- 
nite about its origin, nobody knows who first celebrated it, or 
when or where or how. And nobody even knows if December 
25 be indeed the right anniversary of Christ's nativity. 

This anomaly arises from the habit of the early Christians 
to look upon the celebration of birthdays as heathenish. The 
birthday of the Lord himself was not excepted. But after the 
triumph of Christianity the old prejudice died out j and then the 
date of the Saviour's birth became a matter of ecclesiastical in- 
vestigation. St. John Chrysostom, writing in 386, relates that 



228 CURIOSITIES OF 

St. Cyril at the request of Julius (Bishop or Pope of Eome from 
337 to 352) made a strict inquiry as to the exact date. Cyril 
reported that the Western Churches had always held it to be 
December 25. It is true that other communities of Christians 
preferred other dates. In many Eastern Churches the 6th of 
January had been fixed on as the anniversary not only of the 
birth of Christ, but of his manifestation to the Gentiles. (See 
Epiphany.) April 20, May 20, March 29, and September 29 
were respectively accepted by small minorities. In short, as St. 
Clement says, the matter was very uncertain. 

Nevertheless it appears that Pope Julius was so far satisfied 
with the report of Cyril that somewhere about the middle of the 
fourth century he established the festival at Eome on December 
25. Before the end of the century that date had been accepted 
by all the nations of Christendom. This acceptance was facili- 
tated by the fact that it is the date of the winter solstice, — the 
turning-point of the year, when winter, having reached its apogee, 
must begin to decline again towards spring, — when for unnum- 
bered ages before the Christian era pagan Europe through all its 
tribes and nations had been accustomed to celebrate its chief 
festival. 

Now, it was always the aim of the early Church to reconcile 
heathen converts to the new faith by the adoption of all the 
more harmless features of their festivities and ceremonials. With 
Christmas the Church had a hard task. Though it aimed only 
to retain the pagan forms, it found it could not restrain the 
pagan spirit. In spite of clerical protests and papal anathemas, 
in spite of the condemnation of the wise and the sane, Christmas 
in the early days frequently reproduced all the worst orgies, the 
debaucheries and indecencies, of the Bacchanalia and the Satur- 
nalia. The clergy themselves were M'hirled into the vortex. A 
special celebration called the Feast of Fools was instituted, — as 
learned doctors explained, — with a view that " the folly which is 
natural to and born with us might exhale at least once a year." 
The intention was excellent. But in practice the liberty so 
accorded speedily degenerated into license. The Council of 
Auxerre was moved to inquire into the matter. A Flemish divine 
rose and declared that the festival was an excellent thing and 
quite as acceptable to Cod as that of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion. There was great applause among his like-minded brethren. 
Then Gerson, the most noted theologian of the day, made a 
counter-sensation by retorting that " if all the devils in hell had 
put their heads together to devise a feast that should utterly 
scandalize Christianity, they could not have improved upon this 
one." 

If even among the clergy heathen traditions so strenuously sur- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 229 

vived, what better could be expected from the laity ? The wild 
revels, indeed, of the Chrislmas period in olden times almost 
stagger belief. Obscenity, drunkenness, blasphemy, — nothing 
came amiss. License was carried to the fullest extent of licen- 
tiousness. 

Memorable as an illustration of the manners of the French 
court was a catastrophe that occurred in Paris in 1393. Eiot 
and disorder had run wild all through the Christmas festivities. 
But the court was not yet satisfied. Then Sir Hugonin de Gui- 
say, most reckless among all the reckless spirits of the period, 
suggested that as an excuse for prolonging the merriment a 
marriage should be arranged between two of the court attend- 
ants. This was eagerly agreed upon. Sir Hugonin assumed the 
leadership, a post for which he was well fitted. He was loved 
and admired by the disorderly as much as he was hated and 
feared by the orderly. Among other pleasant traits, he was fond 
of exercising his wit upon tradesmen and mechanics, whom he 
would accost in the street, prick with his spurs, and compel to 
creep on all fours and bark like curs before he released them. 
Such were the traits which endeared him to the courtiers of His 
Most Gracious Majesty and Christian King of France. The mar- 
riage passed oif in a blaze of glory with an accompaniment of 
attendant Gargantuan pleasantry. At the height of the cere- 
monies Sir Hugonin quietly withdrew with the king and four other 
wild ones, scions of the noblest houses in France. With a pot 
of tar and a quantity of tow the six conspirators were speedily 
changed into very fair imitations of the dancing bears then very 
common in mountebanks' booths. A mask completed the trans- 
formation. Five were then bound together with a silken rope. 
The sixth, the king himself, led them into the hall. Their ap- 
pearance created a general stir. " Who are they ?" was the cry. 
Nobody knew. At this moment entered the wildest of all the 
wild Dukes of Orleans. " Who are they?" he echoed between 
hiccoughs. " Well, we'll soon find out." Seizing a brand from 
one of the torch-bearers ranged along the wall, he staggered 
forward. Some gentlemen essayed to stay him. But he was 
obstinate and quarrelsome. Main force could not be thought of 
against a prince of the blood. He was given his way. He 
thrust his torch under the chin of the nearest of the maskers. 
The tow caught fire. In a moment the whole group was in 
flames. The young Duchess of Berri seized the king and en- 
veloped him in her ample robe. Thus he was saved. Another 
masker, the Lord of Nantouillet, noted for strength and agility, 
rent the silken rope with a wrench of his strong teeth, pitched 
himself like a flaming cornet through the first window, and dived 
into a cistern in the court, whence he emerged black and smoking, 



230 CURIOSITIES OF 

but almost unhurt. As for the other four, they whirled hither 
and thither through the horrified mob, struggling with one an- 
other, fighting with the flames, cursing, shrieking with pain. 
Women fainted by scores. Men who had never faltered in a 
hundred fights sickened at the hideous spectacle. All Paris was 
roused by the uproar, and gathered, an excited mob, about the 
palace. At last the flames burnt out. The four maskers lay, a 
black and writhing heap, on the floor. One was a mere cinder. 
A second survived till daybreak. A third died at noon the next 
day. The fourth — no other than Sir Hugonin himself — survived 
for three days, while all Paris rejoiced over his agonies. " Bark, 
dog, bark !" was the cry with which the citizens saluted his 
charred and mangled corpse, when it was at last borne to the 
grave. 

But why dwell on only one side of the picture ? In the 
coarser days of our ancestors riot and revelry did indeed go 
hand in hand, but the revelry was of a lusty, vigorous, and 
hearty sort unknown to these quieter times which have elimi- 
nated the riot. As we read of the great feats performed by 
these heroes of the trencher and the tankard, by these adepts in 
all out-door sports, the Gargantuan good nature of the season 
impresses us moi'e than the cruelty, gluttony, and drunkenness 
which were apt to sully it. A race of jolly giants must needs 
give and take harder blows than their pygmy descendants. 

Merrie old England was the soil in which Merrie Christmas 
took its firmest root. Even in Anglo-Saxon days we hear of 
Alfred holding high revelry in December, 878, so that he allowed 
the Danes to surprise him, cut his army to pieces, and send him 
a fugitive. The court revelries increased in splendor after the 
Conquest. Christmas, it must be remembered, was not then a 
single day of sport. It had its preliminary novena which began 
December 16, and it ended on January 6, or Twelfth-Night. All 
this period was devoted to holiday-making. 

It was a democratic festival. All classes mixed in its merry- 
makings. Hospitality was universal. An English country gen- 
tleman of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries held open house. 
With daybreak on Christmas morning the tenants and neighbors 
thronged into the hall. The ale was broached. Blackjacks and 
Cheshire cheese, with toast and sugar and nutmeg, went plenti- 
fully round. The Hackin, or great sausage, must be boiled at 
daybreak, and if it failed to be ready two 3'Oung men took the 
cook by the arm and ran her around the market-place till she 
was ashamed of her laziness. 

The women also had their privileges. In some places in 
Oxfordshire it was the right of every maid-servant to ask the 
man for ivy to dress the house withal, and if the man refused 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 231 

or forgot, the maid stole a pair of his breeches and nailed them 
to the gate in the yard or highway. In other places a refusal 
to comply with such a request debarred the man from the 
privilege of the mistletoe. 

The gentlemen went to early service. in the church and re- 
turned to breakfast on brawn and mustard and malmsey. Mus- 
tard is your great provoker of a noble thirst. Brawn was a 
dish of great antiquity, made from the flesh of large boars which 
lived in a half- wild state and when put to fatten were strapped 
and belted tight around the body, so as to make the flesh dense 
and brawny. 

With the rise of Puritanism the very existence of Christmas 
was threatened. Even the harmless good cheer of that season 
was looked upon as pagan, or, what was worse. Popish. " Into 
what a stupendous height of more than pagan impiety," cried 
Prynne in his " Histrio-Mastix," " have we not now degenerated!'' 
Prynne's rhetoric, it will be seen, is not without an unconscious 
charm of humor. He complained that the England of his day 
could not celebrate Christmas or any other festival "without 
drinking, roaring, healthing, dicing, carding, dancing, masques 
and stage-plays . . . which Turkes and Infidels would abhor to 
practise." 

Puritanism brought over with it in the Mayflower the anti- 
Christmas feeling to New England. So early as 1621 Governor 
Bradford was called upon to administer a rebuke to " certain 
lusty yonge men" who had just come over in the little ship For- 
tune. " On ye day called Christmas day," says William Brad- 
ford, " ye Gov"" caled them out to worke (as was used), but ye 
most of this new company excused themselves and said it went 
against their consciences to worke on ye day. So ye Gov'' tould 
them that if they made it mater of conscience, he would spare 
them till they were better informed. So he led away ye rest, 
and left them ; but when they came home at noone from their 
worke, he found them in ye streete at play, openly : some pitch- 
ing ye barr, and some at stoole-ball and such like sports. So 
he went to them and tooke away their implements, and tould 
them that it was against his conscience that they should play and 
others worke. If they made ye keeping of it matter of devo- 
tion, let them kepe their houses, but ther should be no gameing 
or revelling in ye streets. Since w^hich time nothing hath been 
atempted that way, at least openly." 

In England the feeling culminated in 1643, when the Eound- 
head Parliament abolished the observance of saints' days and 
" the three grand festivals" of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun- 
tide, "any law, statute, custom, constitution, or canon to the 
contrary in any wise notwithstanding." The king protested. 



232 CURIOSITIES OF 

But he was answered. In London, nevertheless, there was an 
alarming disposition to observe Christmas. The mob attacked 
those who by opening their shops flouted the holiday. In several 
counties the disorder was threatening. But Parliament adopted 
strong measures, and during the twelve years in which the great 
festivals were discountenanced there was no further tumult, and 
the observance of Christmas as a general holiday ceased. 

The General Court of Massachusetts followed the example of 
the English Parliament in 1659 when it enacted that "anybody 
who is found observing, by abstinence from labor, feasting, or 
any other way, any such day as Christmas day, shall pay for 
every such ofl'ence five shillings." 

The restoration of English royalty brought about the restora- 
tion of the English Christmas. It was not till 1681, however, 
that Massachusetts repealed the ordinance of 1659. But the 
repeal was bitter to old Puritanism, which kept up an ever atten- 
uating protest even down to the early part of the present cen- 
tury. (See Thanksgiving. Also see Boar's Head; Carols; 
Mistletoe ; Misrule, Lord op ; Waits ; Yule-Log, etc., for 
special Christmas festivities.) 

There are many superstitions connected with the coming of 
Christmas itself To the cock have from time immemorial been 
attributed unwonted energy and sagacity at that season. Even 
now in England it is common to hear one say, when the cock 
crows in the stillness of the November and December nights, 
" The cock is crowing for Christmas." He is supposed to do this 
for the purpose of scaring off the evil spirits from the holy season. 

The bees are said to sing, the cattle to kneel, in honor of the 
manger, and the sheep to go in procession in commemoration of 
the visit of the angel to the shepherds. 

Howison in his " Sketches of Upper Canada" relates that on 
one moonlit Christmas Eve he saw an Indian creeping cautiously 
through the woods. In response to an inquiry, he said, '• Me 
watch to see deer kneel. Christmas night all deer kneel and 
look up to Great Spirit." 

In the German Alps it is believed that the cattle have the gift 
of language on Christmas Eve. But it is a sin to attempt to play 
the eavesdropper upon them. An Alpine story is told of a 
farmer's servant who did not believe that the cattle could speak, 
and, to make sure, he hid in his master's stable on Christmas 
Eve and listened. When the clock struck twelve he was sur- 
prised at what he heard. " We shall have hard work to do this 
day week," said one horse. " Yes ; the farmer's servant is heavy," 
answered the other horse. " And the way to the churchyard is 
long and steep," said the first. The servant was buried that 
day week. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 233 

An English writer says that two countrymen who watched the 
cattle in the barns reported that two only knelt, but they fell 
upon their knees with a groan almost human. His informants 
were much angered that he received this story with incredulity. 
These well-known lines from '• Hamlet" recognize these super- 
stitions : 

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes, 
"Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, 
The bird of dawning singeth all night long ; 
And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad ; 
The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike, 
No fairy lakes, nor witch hath power to charm, 
So hallowed and so gracious is that time. 

The salmon was a great Christmas favorite, and Sandys men- 
tions a Monmouthshire tradition to the effect that on every 
Christmas Day, in the morning only, a large salmon appeared in 
the adjoining river, showed himself openly, and permitted him- 
self to be taken and handled ; but it would have been the greatest 
impiety to capture him. 

Meteorological superstitions are embodied in the following 
verses : 

Now take heed, every man, 

That English understand can. 

If that Christmas day fall 

Upon Friday, know well all 

That winter season shall be easy. 

Save great winds aloft shall fly ; 

The summer also shall be dry 

And right seasonable, I say. 

Beasts and sheep shall thrive right well. 

But other victuals shall fail ; 

"What child that day is born 

Great and rich he shall be of corn. 

If Christmas day on Monday be, 
A great winter that year you'll see. 
And full of winds, both loud and shrill ; 
But, in summer, truth to tell. 
High winds shall there be and strong, 
Full of tempests lasting long, 
While battles they shall multiply. 
And great plenty of beasts shall die. 

It has been pointed out that this latter direful prophecy was 
fulfilled in 1866, following the Christmas of 1865, which fell 
upon Monday. 

In some places, as in Suabia, it is customary for maidens, in- 
quisitive as to their prospective lovers, to draw a stick of wood 
out of a heap to see whether he will be long or short, crooked 
or straight. At other times they will pour melted lead into cold 



CURIOSITIES OF 

water, and from the figures formed will prognosticate the trade 
or profession of the future husband. If they imagine they see 
a plane, or a last, or a pair of shears, it signifies that he is to 
be a carpenter, or shoemaker, or tailor; while a hammer or a 
pickaxe indicates a smith or a common laborer. The maidens 
of Pfullingen, when they wish to ascertain which of them will 
first become a wife, form a circle, and place in their midst a 
blindfolded gander, and the one to whom he goes first will soon 
be a bride ; while the Tyrolese peasants, on the " knocking 
nights," listen at the baking-ovens, and if they hear music it 
signifies an early wedding, but if the ringing of bells, it fore- 
bodes the death of the listener. Among many others, a favorite 
method of forecasting the future is to sit upon the floor and 
throw one's shoe with the foot over the shoulder, and then to 
predict from the position it assumes what is about to happen. 

In Poland, and elsewhere, it is believed that on Christmas 
night the heavens are opened and the scene of Jacob's ladder is 
re-enacted, but it is permitted only to the saints to see it. 
Throughout Northern Germany the tables are spread and lights 
left burning during the entire night, that the Virgin Mary and 
the angel who passes when everybody sleeps may find some- 
thing to eat. In certain parts of Austria they put candles in 
the windows, that the Christ-Child may not stumble in passing 
through the village. There is also a wide-spread opinion that a 
pack of wolves, which were no other than wicked men trans- 
formed into wolves, committed great havoc upon Christmas 
night. Taking advantage of this superstition, it was not un- 
usual for rogues disguised in wolf-skins to attack honest people, 
rifle their houses, sack their cellars, and drink or steal all their 
beer. As a specific charm, no doubt, against these wolfish 
depredations, it was customary in Austria, up to a recent date, 
after high mass on Christmas night, to sing in a particular tone, 
to the sound of the large bell, the chapter of the generation of 
Jesus Christ. 

In Germany the decoration of the house begins as early as 
the morning of the 24th. One room, from which all save " die 
Mutter" is rigidly excluded, contains the Christmas-tree and all 
the presents, set in a shining row upon the table. Greens are 
hung from window and door, and garlands upon the walls. 
Upon the dining-table a great cold supper is spread. Family 
and guests begin to gather at five o'clock. The childreij's eyes 
are glued to the shding doors, which are presently to open and 
disclose the tree. Six o'clock, — a bell rings. Back swings the 
portal, and there it stands, resplendent wdth lights and tinsel. 
The children pounce upon it, and are with difiiculty held back 
while the presents are taken down from the branches and dis- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 235 

tributed. Everybody kisses everybody else, and for two or 
three hours the cares of life are forgotten. Then the late supper 
and to bed. . Thus the Grerman Christmas is well over before 
the day itself arrives. The family arise late on the morning of 
the 25th. The day is spent in paying and receiving visits, at 
which the children compare presents. In the evening there is a 
dance, with much music and much merriment. 

Christmas Eve is a fete in Paris, and the Grand Boulevard 
possesses a character distinctive of the occasion. Late in the 
evening the cafes become crowded, and the cafe-restaurants that 
are to keep ojjen all night for the Christmas " reveillon" begin to 
arrange their tables, many of which have been engaged in ad- 
vance. The "reveillon," or Christmas Eve supper at midnight, 
is more important to the Frenchman than the Christmas dinner, 
and the indulgence in it may somewhat account for the general 
atmosphere of almost gloomy abstinence that seems to hang over 
Paris on Christmas Day. Oysters represent the favorite first 
course, and any one interested in statistics may like to know 
that half a million dozen oysters were sold at the Halles on 
Christmas Eve in 1896, and of ecrevisse, that appetizing craw- 
fish, sixty thousand represents the number consumed during the 
'•reveillon." Impecunious clerks and reckless Latin Quarter 
students go dinnerless, in the first instance a week beforehand, 
and in the second often a month afterwards, that they may par- 
take of a proper " reveillon" in a restaurant that is usually closed 
to them by apparent bars of gold. The thoroughly up-to-date 
Parisian divides his Christmas supper into many courses, taking 
each at a different place, and perhaps reaching home for the last 
cup of coffee, served in place of the " petit dejeuner." 

In the rural life of Eussia Christmas Eve is an important 
event. At sunset young and old assemble in the principal street 
of the village, and, forming in a procession, visit the houses of 
the resident nobleman, the mayor, and other village dignitaries, 
where they sing carols and receive coppers in return. This part 
of the ceremonies is called Kolenda, which means begging for 
money or presents. A masquerade follows, in which the adults 
transform themselves into imitation cows, pigs, goats, and other 
animals, in remembrance of the Nativity in the manger. 

As soon as the evening star appears above the horizon, a 
colatzia, or supper, is served. A long table is covered with 
straw, Over this a cloth is laid, on which the samovar is placed, 
together with fish prepared in various ways, and different kinds 
of cakes. The feast begins by dividing the blessed wafer, a small 
portion of which is given to each person present. This is a 
sacred rite in which none dare refuse to participate. The head 
of each family is given his share first. The remaining members 



236 CURIOSITIES OF 

are served according to their ages, the little children, of course, 
being left till the last. 

At the conclusion of the evening-star celebration, a majority 
of the peasants proceed to the house of the nobleman whom they 
first visited, where an immense tree has been prepared for them. 
This tree is laden with inexpensive presents of various kinds. 
If the nobleman has any young children, he supplies them with 
quantities of small coin, which they distribute among the peasant 
guests. 

In no land is Christmas more generally celebrated than in 
Scandinavia. Peace and good will is the order of the season. 
The courts are closed, old quarrels are adjusted, and feuds are 
forgotten. A pretty symbol of the spirit that reigns is the Yule- 
night practice of placing in a row every pair of shoes in each 
household, typifying that during the year the family will live 
together in peace and harmony. 

Scandinavia is especially the land of the Yule-log, of Christmas 
stories and legends of Thor and Odin. Then is the time for 
skating, sledging, dancing, and a general frolic. It is customary 
for every member of the family to take a bath on the afternoon 
preceding Christmas, and oftentimes it is the only thorough 
bath that is received during the year. When the eve comes, 
the Bible is read in nearly every household and family service is 
held. In many villages candles are left burning in the windows 
all night, to give light to Kristin e, who brings the gifts. It is 
also the custom to set a cake of meal out in the snow as a 
Christmas offering. The birds of the air are thought of, and a 
sheaf of wheat is placed on a pole in front of each house to 
provide them with food. 

On Christmas evening are the usual games. They are more 
than likely to be interrupted by a knock at the door and the 
entrance of four or five boys dressed in white. One carries a 
colored star-shaped lantern, and another an ornamented glass 
box containing two dolls, representing the Yirgin and Child. 
The boys chant a carol or two, and after partaking of refresh- 
ments are dismissed, to continue their journej^ to the next house. 
The games are likely to be interrupted again by the coming 
of another band of merrymakers. This time it is masked per- 
formers, wearing tattered uniforms decked with tinsel, and 
carrying wooden swords. They perform tricks and pantomime, 
and go through a mock military review. These performances 
are always enjoyed, and the performers never go away from a 
house empty-handed. The festivities do not close until a late 
hour. 

From the frozen North, of the midnight sun, to the evergreen 
South, of perpetual summer, is a long journey, but in all the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 237 

distance there is found no land where the Christmas festival is 
not celebrated. 

A Christmas celebration in Peru has peculiar features. In the 
cities, and more especially in Lima, there are bewildering scenes 
of activity on Christmas Eve. The streets and squares are 
crowded with a gayly dressed people. Droves of asses are to 
be seen in every direction, laden with fruits, boughs from the 
mountains, liquors, and other merchandise. Ice-stalls, provided 
with chairs and benches, are crowded by the perspiring pleasure- 
seekers, who find ice necessary on sultry Christmas. 

As night approaches, the streets are packed with a noisy 
people, and joke and jest and merry pranks become the rule. 
These are participated in mostly by strangely attired persons 
in masks. Music of guitars, clattering castanets, and pebbles 
rattling in gourds fill the air with mingled discordant sounds. 
No door is closed. There are music and dancing and the dis- 
tribution of gifts in every house. All are welcome to enter. 
Strangers are sure of a hearty welcome, and to be a foreigner is 
to have a double claim on hospitality and to receive a double 
welcome. All ceremony and restraint are absent. In many 
houses the love of the Christmas drama is shown by theatrical 
representations of the Nativity, with the same characters as are 
seen the world over. 

Suddenly the scene changes. The curtain falls on the play, 
the music and dancing cease, and the people go from their 
homes. The midnight bell at the cathedral has summoned all to 
mass. The houses and streets are nearly deserted, while the 
churches, with their decorations and blazing tapers, are thronged. 
Worshippers are kneeling before the many shrines that line their 
walls, and wherever they can find a place where one of the 
many waxen images of the saints is displayed. With the 
organ's peal, and the entering of the richly vested priests and 
plainly attired monks, begins the celebration of the mass. 

Again on Christmas morning the streets are crowded and the 
markets are thronged, but at nine o'clock the churches are again 
filled. After the services come the feast and the games and the 
sports. Of all the sports, bull-fighting is the favorite, and the 
Christmas fight is generally the best of the season, as eight or 
ten bulls are frequently killed on that day, besides several horses, 
and not infrequently one or two of the fighting-men. In this 
sport the women appear to take more enthusiastic pleasure than 
the men. 

When night comes there is a grand procession, headed by the 
priests and monks, who are followed by the soldiers and people. 
All are gayly dressed, and many in fantastic costumes and 
masks. Banners, flags, streaming ribbons, and green boughs 



238 CURIOSITIES OF 

are carried, and music fills the air. In the midst of the pro- 
cession there is held aloft the figure of the Madonna bearing in 
her arms the Holy Child. After a long march the procession 
returns to the cathedral, there disbands, and the Christmas Day 
celebration is at an end. 

The ante-bellum period in the Southern States was signalized 
by a special celebration at Christmas-tide, handed down from 
those English folk, gentle and simple, w^ho first peopled Virginia 
and the Carolinas, and whose descendants have spread over the 
face of the country south of Mason and Dixon's line. 

" There's no such thing as real Christmas now," sigh elder 
folk, white and black, whose memories run back to the gay, 
good days of slavery. Then, in truth, it was a two weeks' 
saturnalia. ISTo master who respected himself, or hoped to keep 
the respect of his neighbors, dreamed of asking his black people 
to do more in the month of December than kill hogs and get up 
a big Christmas wood-pile. 

When the hauling was finished, a dozen axes flew, chopping it 
in lengths for the big-throated open fireplaces. By and by there 
was a procession of stout fellows with a log or a turn of small 
sticks on the shoulder, setting up great piles of firewood beside 
all the doors. After every exit to the great house was duly sur- 
rounded, the back piazzas filled, and chips banked high in the 
saddle-room, great sticks and small began to be heaped at the 
cabin doors. By the time they were all fully furnished the 
mountain of a wood-pile was sensibly smaller, though far from 
exhausted. Usually this came to pass about midday of Decem- 
ber 24. 

To the mass of slaves their masters' concerns were as much a 
matter of interest and of pride as they were to those affected 
by them. Besides, the darky is a born gossip, likewise a born de- 
tective. The shrewdest match-making maiiima was not quicker 
to detect serious intentions in a promising young man visitor. 
Where there were 3'oung ladies in the great house the young 
man visitor was mighty plentiful about Christmas-time. He 
came from far and near, — often across three counties. He rode 
a high-stepping horse, and was nice in the matter of equipage. 
Often he brought along his own black boy, likewise mounted, 
and carrying behind him fat, bulging saddle-bags stuffed with 
his master's wardrobe. For the j^oung man came to stay at least 
the week, — most likely the fortnight, unless he "got the sack" 
from the object of his affections and so rode away in a furious 
huff. 

Often, too, the old negroes went visiting on their own account. 
No time like Christmas for a trip back to old Marster's or to see 
the sister or brother who had been given to some other branch 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 239 

of the family and so lived maybe twenty miles away. Duly 
mounted, tricked out in Sunday best, with all sorts of queer 
bundles dangling here and there, and a carpet-bag fat to burst- 
ing swung at the horn of the saddle, Black Daddy and Black 
Mammy rode a-Christmasing, and at the journey's end were as 
welcome to whites as to blacks. 

Nightfall brought sw^arms of visitors, both to house and 
kitchen. Very often there was a dance in both as soon as it 
was fairly dark. In every cabin there were laughter, singing, 
and good cheer. In many of them revelry went on through 
the night. The dancing lasted maybe to one o'clock ; after that 
there was singing to the accompaniment of a gourd banjo, with, 
a little later, tale-telling in the light of the waning fire. 

The pious among the slaves sang and j^^'^y^d the night 
through. But their piety did not take the form of a prohibition 
sentiment. With a psalm yet hot in the mouth they were as 
ready as their fellows to troop up to the great house at daylight 
and drink their share of Christmas eggnog. Small blame to 
them, either, since the eggnog of those days was a mighty 
seductive thing to any who had a nice taste in drinks. 

Christmas Card. Legitimately, a piece of card-board of any 
handy size, breathing pictorial and verbal benevolence in every 
variety of tone from the religious to the comic, which is sent to 
a friend or relative on Christmas. At present the term has been 
enlarged so as to include almanacs and even pamphlets illuminated 
with gay colors and obscured with maudlin prose and doggerel 
verse that has no earthly connection with the season. 

The Christmas card is the legitimate descendant of the " school 
pieces" or " Christmas pieces" which were popular from the 
beginning to the middle of the nineteenth century. These were 
sheets of writing-paper, sometimes surrounded with those hide- 
ous and elaborate pen-flourishes forming birds, scrolls, etc., to 
which writing-masters still have an unnatural and inexplicable 
attachment, and sometimes headed with copperplate engravings, 
plain or colored. They were used by school-boys at the approach 
of the holidays for carefully written letters exploiting the pro- 
gress they had made in composition and chirography. 

A publisher writing to JVotes and Queries in 1871 (Fourth 
Series, vi. 462) tells us that some thirty years previous the sale 
of these was very considerable. " My father published some 
thirty different subjects (a new one every year, one of the old 
ones being let go out of print). There were also three other 
publishers of them. The order to print used to average about 
five hundred of each kind, but double of the Life of Our Saviour. 
Most of the subjects were those of the Old Testament. I only 



240 CURIOSITIES OF 

recollect four subjects not sacred. Printing at home, we gener- 
ally commenced the printing in August from the copperplates, 
as they had to be colored by hand. They sold, retail, at six- 
pence each, and we used to supply them to the trade at thirty 
shillings per gross and to schools at three shillings sixpence per 
dozen.' Charity boys were large purchasers of these pieces, and 
at Christmas time used to take them round their parish to show 
and at the same time solicit a trifle." 

The Christmas card proper had a tentative origin in 1846. 
Mr. Joseph Cundall, a London artist, lays claim to being the 
publisher of the first one. He acknowledges, however, that the 
idea was another's. " The first Christmas card ever published," 
he wrote in the London Times of January 2, 1884, " was issued 
by me in the usual way, in the year 1846, at the ofiSce of Felix 
Summerly 's Home Treasury, 12 Old Bond St. Mr. Henry Cole 
(afterwards Sir Henry) originated the idea. The drawing was 
made by J. C. Horsley, E.A., it was printed in lithography by 
Mr. Jobbins of Warwick Court, Holborn, and colored by hand. 
Many copies were sold, but possibly not more than one thousand. 
It was of the usual size of a lady's card." 

Not until 1862, however, did the custom obtain any foothold. 
Then experiments were made with cards of the size of an 
ordinary carte de visite inscribed simply " A Merry Christmas" 
and " A Happy IS'ew Year." After that there came to be added 
robins and holly branches, embossed figures and landscapes. 
" I have the original designs before me now," wrote " Luke Lim- 
ner," or John Leighton, to the London Publishers' Circular, De- 
cember 31, 1883 ; " they were produced by Goodall & Son. See- 
ing a growing want, and the great sale obtained abroad, this 
house produced (1868) a Little Eed Eiding-Hood, a Hermit and 
his Cell, and many other subjects in which snow and the robin 
played a part." 

The Christmas card has some advantages. It is an inexpen- 
sive method of exchanging Christmas remembrances between 
people of moderate means. But it has been degenerating into 
something akin to a nuisance. It is a real inconvenience to 
business-men to find their correspondence interrupted by the 
flood of cards which chokes the mail-bag through the Christmas 
season, and even to people of leisure it is an annoyance. More- 
over, in this case the actual annoyance is aggravated by a feeling 
of sentimental injury. If the Christmas card were an honest 
tribute of regard or admiration, we might be content to tolerate 
it as a well-meaning nuisance ; but it is felt at best to be a 
threadbare convention, and it is often little better than an im- 
pudent fraud. It frequently serves as a cheap and unworthy 
substitute for the turkey, the Stilton, the barrel of oysters, or 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 241 

even the check, in which the healthier benevolence of former 
days found expression at Christmas time. It comes upon us in 
the specious guise of a letter ; but in this respect it shares all 
the reprehensible peculiarities of the whited sepulchre. The 
new woman may cherish a fine scorn for social frivolities ; the 
old woman, however (if she happens to be a young one), is not 
cast in the same heroic mould, and grievous is her disappoint- 
ment when the stiff envelope disgorges a simpering Christmas 
card, instead of, as she had fondly hoped, " a ball." 

Even from an artistic point of view the Christmas card is not 
free from reproach, since the imagination of the artist in its 
search for the beautiful has somewhat unduly neglected the 
appropriate. The traditional robin in a snow-storm is more or 
less in keeping with the associations of the season, and he is 
still to be found among Christmas cards, but in steadily de- 
creasing numbers. His place is being taken by summer seas, 
winding rivers, spring lawns, and other similar suggestions of 
the past and the future which tend to make the average man 
profoundly discontented with the immediate present. 

Christmas-Tree. Many countries have their popular legends 
claiming for them the honor of having given the Christmas-tree 
to the world. Though of no historical value, these have their 
antiquarian interest. 

A Scandinavian myth of great antiquity speaks of a " service- 
tree" sprung from the blood-drenched soil where two lovers had 
been killed by violence. At certain nights in the Christmas 
season mysterious lights were seen flaming in its branches, that 
no wind could extinguish. 

The French have their legend as well. In a romance of the 
thirteenth century the hero finds a gigantic tree whose branches 
are covered with burning candles, some standing erect, the others 
upside down, and on the top the vision of a child with a halo 
around his curly head. The knight asked the Pope for an expla- 
nation, who declared that the tree undoubtedly represented man- 
kind, the child the Saviour, and the candles good and bad human 
beings. 

Wolfram von Eschenbach, the famous minstrel, sings of a pre- 
vailing custom of welcoming guests with branches ornamented 
with burning candles. 

One tale bestows the honor upon Martin Luther. One Christ- 
mas Eve, travelling alone over the snow-covered country, the sky, 
with its thousands of glittering stars, made such a deep impres- 
sion upon the Ee former that after arriving at home he tried to 
explain it to his wife and children. Suddenly an idea suggested 
itself to him. He went into the garden, cut off a little fir-tree, 

16 



242 CURIOSITIES OF 

dragged it into the nursery, put some candles on its branches, and 
lighted them. 

One of the most popular of German engravings represents 
Martin Luther sitting in the bosom of his family with a lighted 
Christmas-tree on the table before him. 

An older German legend makes St. Winfrid the inventor of the 
idea. In the midst of a crowd of converts he hewed down a 
giant oak which had formerly been the object of their Druidic 
worship. 

" Then the sole wonder in Winfrid's life came to pass. For, 
as the bright blade circled above his head, and the flakes of 
wood flew from the deepening gash in the body of the tree, a 
whirling wind passed over the forest. It gripped the oak froni 
its foundations. Backward it fell like a tower, groaning as it 
split asunder in four pieces. But just behind it, and unharmed 
by the ruin, stood a young fir-tree, pointing a green spire towards 
the stars. 

" Winfrid let the axe drop, and turned to speak to the 
people. 

" ' This little tree, a young child of the forest, shall be your 
holy tree to-night. It is the wood of peace, for your houses are 
built of the fir. It is the sign of an endless life, for its leaves 
are ever green. See how it points upward to heaven. Let this 
be called the tree of the Christ-child ; gather about it, not in 
the wild wood, but in your own homes; there it will shelter no 
deeds of blood, but loving gifts and rites of kindness.' " 

But, myths aside, the historj^ of the Christmas-tree is difficult 
to trace. It may have some remote connection with the great 
tree Yggdrasil of Norse mythology. It may be a revival of the 
pine-trees in the Roman Saturnalia which were decorated with 
images of Bacchus, as described by Yirgil in the Georgics : 

In jolly hymns they praise the god of wine, 

Whose earthen images adorn the pine, 

And these are hung on high in honor of the vine. 

{Dry den's translation^ 

Two other suggestions are oflPered by Sir George Birdswood in 
the Asiatic Quarterly Review (vol. i. pp. 19-20). " It has been ex- 
plained," he says, " as being derived from the ancient Egyptian 
practice of decking houses at the time of the winter solstice with 
branches of the date-palm, the symbol of life triumphant over 
death, and therefore of perennial life in the renewal of each 
bounteous year ; and the supporters of these suggestions point to 
the fact that pyramids of green paper, covered all over with 
wreaths and festoons of flowers and strings of sweetmeats, are 
often substituted in Germany for the Christmas-tree. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 243 

" But similar pyramids, together with similar trees, the latter 
usually altogether artificial, and often constructed of the costliest 
materials, even of gems and gold, are carried about at marriage 
ceremonies in India and at many festivals, such as the Hull, or 
annual festival of the vernal equinox. These pyramids represent 
Mount Meru and the earth, and the trees, the Kalpadrama, or 
Tree of Ages, and the fragrant Parijata, the tree of every perfect 
gift, which grew on the slopes of Mount Meru ; and in their en- 
larged sense they symbolize the splendor of the outstretched 
heavens, as of a tree, laden with golden fruit, deep-rooted in the 
earth. Both pyramids and trees are also phallic emblems of life, 
individual, terrestrial, and celestial. Therefore, if a relationsiaip 
exists between the Egyptian practice of decking houses at the 
winter solstice with branches of the date-palm, and the German 
and English custom of using gift-bearing and brilliantly illumi- 
nated evergreen trees, which are nearly always firs, as a Christ- 
mas decoration, it is most probably due to collateral rather than 
to direct descent ; and this is indicated by the Egyptians having 
regarded the date-palm not only as an emblem of immortality, 
but also of the starlit firmament." 

The suggestion as to collateral rather than direct descent is 
eminently plausible. The legends already quoted show that even 
in mediaeval times there was a tradition of holiness investing an 
illuminated tree which made it mystically appropriate to the 
season of the winter solstice, — i.e., the season which Christianity 
had recently redeemed from paganism by making it the birth - 
time of Christ. These traditions may have been strongly influ- 
enced by the fact that about this time the Jews celebrated their 
feast of Chanuckah (q. ?;.), or Lights, also known as the Feast of 
the Dedication. Lighted candles are a feature of the Jewish feast. 
Innumerable lights must therefore have been twinkling in every 
Jewish house in Bethlehem and Nazareth at about the reputed 
time of the Saviour's birth. It is worthy of note that the Ger- 
man name for Christmas is Weihnacht, the l!^ight of Dedication, 
and that the Greeks call Christmas the Feast of Lights. 

These vague traditions merging together finally led to the per- 
manent establishment of the Christmas-tree. As a regular insti- 
tution, however, it can be traced back only to the sixteenth cen- 
tury. During the Middle Ages it suddenly appears in Strassburg. 
A valuable authentic manuscript of 1608, by a Strassburg burgher, 
now in a private collection in Friedberg, Hesse, describes the tree 
as a feature of the Christmas season. The manuscript of a book 
entitled "The Milk of Catechism," by the Strassburg theologian 
Dannhauer, mentions the same subject in a similar way. For 
two hundred years the fashion maintained itself along the 
Ehine, when suddenly, at the beginning of this century, it 



244 CURIOSITIES OF 

spread all over Germany, and fifty years later had conquered 
Christendom. 

The first description of a Christmas-tree in modern literature 
is to be found in " The Nut-Cracker," a fairy-tale, by Fouque and 
Hoffmann. 

In 1830 the Christmas-tree was introduced by Queen Caroline 
into Munich. At the same time it beat its path through Bo- 
hemia into Hungarj^ where it became fashionable among the 
Magyar aristocracy. 

In 1840 the Duchess Helena of Orleans brought it to the Tuile- 
ries. Empress Eugenie also patronized it, but by the middle class 
it was still considered an intruder of Alsatian origin. In 1860 
the German residents of Paris could procure a Christmas-tree only 
with the greatest difficulty. However, nine years later the trees 
were regularly sold in the market. In 1870 the German army 
celebrated Christmas in the church of Notre-Dame, and to-daj^ 
Paris uses fifty thousand trees each year, of which only about 
one-fourth part are bought by Swiss, Germans, and Alsatians. The 
French plant the entire tree, with its root in a tub, so as to 
be able to preserve the tree until New Year, when it is " plun- 
dered." 

It was the marriage of Queen Victoria to a German prince 
which led to the introduction of the German custom into Eng- 
land. But a Christmas-tree, or something like it, is known to 
have played an important part in a Christmas pageant given in 
honor of Henry YIIL, and Greville's Memoirs under date of 
December^ 29, 1829, mentions that " on Christmas the Princess 
Lieven got up a little fete such as is customary all over Germany. 
Three trees, in great pots, were put upon a long table covered 
with pink linen ; each tree was illuminated with three circular 
tiers of colored wax candles, — blue, green, red, and white. Be- 
fore each tree was displayed a quantity of toys, gloves, pocket- 
handkerchiefs, workboxes, books, and various articles, — ^presents 
made to the owner of the tree. It was very pretty. Here it 
was only for the children ; in Germany the custom extended to 
persons of all ages." 

In America the German emigrant brought the tree with him, 
and it was soon taken up by all classes. 

A modern writer describes how a Christmas-tree is set up for 
all the children of the neighborhood in the great hall of an Eng- 
lish country squire's house. At nightfall on Christmas Eve the 
children, marshalled by the vicar and the village school-mistress, 
made their way to the hall, where they took their appointed 
places. The Christmas-tree had been drawn back into the bay- 
windows, and was hidden by the sheet now hung up for the magic 
lantern. "The squire was the showman, who expounded the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 245 

successive men and beasts, ships and comets, and their eccentric 
performances, with appiopriate comic gravity. The children 
listened in admiring silence, which now and then broke into a 
half-suppressed murmur of delight, especially when the rat ran 
into the mouth of the old gentleman asleep in his bed, and con- 
tinued to repeat the feat over and over again. Then the last 
disk of light upon the sheet disappeared, and was succeeded by 
the twinkling of minute lights behind. There was breathless 
expectation ; the sheet was drawn back, and the tree in all its 
glory was brought into the middle of the hall. The murmur of 
half-suppressed delight came again from the rows of children, 
some of whom saw the fairy scene for the first time, while to 
others the renewal of the pleasure was perhaps even greater than 
its first awaking ; and one little one whispered, in an awe-sub- 
dued voice, 'I think it is like heaven.' On the very top shoot 
stood an angel, with a Union Jack in one hand and a lighted red 
taper in the other ; on every branch were like tapers of red, blue, 
yellow, white, and green, skilfully fixed and counterpoised so 
that they should not set fire to the tree, nor to the smaller toys 
and trinkets hung upon the branches. All round the foot of the 
tree, and on a table near, were the larger toys for the children 
and the more useful presents for their elders. Behind was the 
gardener, with a bucket of water and a garden-syringe, — happily 
not to be needed. These fruits of the magic tree had already 
been labelled with the name of a boy or girl, children of the 
farmers or the cottagers, or the squire's grandchildren. Each 
name was called out in succession, and the hall soon resounded 
with joyful voices intermingled with the sound of the crackers 
which were drawn with exclamations of surprised triumph : paper 
caps, and aprons, and bonnets, and mottoes in the most execrable 
verse that ever wit of man has devised. There was a due quota 
of penny whistles, trumpets, and accordions. The oranges and 
bonbons from the tree were followed by slices of cake from the 
table, till the hands and arms of every child were laden and over- 
laden. Then they gathered round the dismantled tree with its 
tapering lights and sang Hark the herald angels. This was fol- 
lowed by God save the Queen, and then the procession re-formed, 
and the happy little ones went home in the moonlight." (^Atlantic 
Monthly, December, 1894.) 

Chrysanthemums, Feast of. (Japanese, Kiku-no-Sekku.) A 
Japanese holida}' celebrated on the ninth day of the ninth month, 
or towards the end of October in our calendar, and therefore at a 
season when the kiku, or chrysanthemum, is almost the only 
flower in full bloom. A cheerful and gayly dressed multitude 
streams out to visit tiic places devoted to its cultivation and sale. 



246 CURIOSITIES OF 

At all the family repasts during the day the leaves of chrysan- 
themum flowers are scattered over the cups of tea. It is be- 
lieved that libations so prepared have the power of prolonging 
life and strength. 

Churching of Women. This is a survival of the Jewish rite 
of purification after childbirth from ceremonial uncleanness. It 
is not enjoined as matter of obligation by either the Eoman or 
the English Church, but is recommended as a pious and laudable 
custom. In the Roman ritual the woman, wearing a veil, kneels 
at the door of the church, holding a lighted candle with holy 
water. The priest sprinkles her, and, having recited the 23d 
Psalm, puts the end of his stole in her hand and leads her into 
the church, saying, " Come into the temple of God. Adore the 
Son of the blessed Virgin Mary, who has given thee fruitfulness 
in child-bearing." The woman then advances to the altar and 
kneels before it, while the priest, having said a prayer of thanks- 
giving, blesses her, and again sprinkles her with holy water in 
the form of a cross. The rite is given only to women who have 
borne children in wedlock. 

In England after the Reformation the place where the woman 
must kneel was shifted to the altar rails. The office was not used 
for unmarried women till they had done their penance, and even 
then could take place only on a Sunday or holy-day. These re- 
strictions have been abolished ; but it is required of a cleric that 
he satisfy himself of the woman's penitence. 

The idea of uncleanness attached to pregnancy is ancient and 
wide-spread. It took curious forms in England. Thus, in Ellis's 
" Historical Letters," Third Series, ii. 226, occurs the following : 
" There is a certain superstitious opinion and usage among 
women, which is that in case a woman go with child she may 
christen (that is, be sponsor to) no other man's child as long as 
she is in that case." In 1880 a woman with child refused to take 
an oath at a police court, — probably an unreasoning survival of 
the same thought. (JSfotes and Queries, Sixth Series, iii. 48.) 

Churruk Poojah. (Swinging Festival.) An out-door relig- 
ious fete celebrated in honor of the goddess Kali by the Hindoos 
in many parts of India. The main feature is the swinging in 
the air of self-immolated victims on iron hooks depending from 
a cross beam, which in its turn seesaws across the top of a huge 
upright pole. The hooks are passed into about two and a half 
inches of the skin and flesh of the back. They are fastened by 
ropes to the end of the cross-pole, lowered by tilting for the 
purpose. Then the victim is lifted up into the air, the body 
fairly hanging by the hooks without any auxiliary support, and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 247 

made to gyrate in wide circles. The victims genera*lly remain 
up, swinging about, for fifteen or twenty minutes, but they are 
lowered at any time on their making a sign. Instances some- 
times occur in which the flesh and muscles of the back give way, 
and the devotee is dashed to the ground with fatal violence. 
Accidents are rare, however. In many cases the saint^ are " old 
hands," who perform this rite from motives of gain and reputa- 
tion, and who go through their martyrdom with great cheerful- 
ness and self-satisfaction. But in many other cases they are 
novices, who offer themselves in fulfilment of a vow made to 
Siva or his spouse Kali. 

Seldom do even novices wince when the hooks are fastened, 
and the subsequent swinging in the air is invariably borne with 
composure, often with enthusiasm. Sometimes the devotee 
smokes his pipe while whirling in his lofty gyrations. It is usual 
for the devotee to take up with him fruits and flowers in his 
girdle, which he throws down to the crowd, who, — especially the 
female portion, — laughing and shouting with delight, rush eagerly 
to catch them in their hands or in umbrellas inverted to receive 
them. Sterile women are especially anxious to obtain the fruit 
scattered by these devotees of Siva, as a means of wiping away 
their reproach ; and wealthy childless ladies frequently send 
their servants to the festival to procure some of the auspicious 
fruit for their mistresses to eat. 

A writer in Household Words^ v. 506, describes a Churruk 
Poojah which he witnessed some time in the early fifties. The 
spot was an extensive valley in the neighborhood of one of the 
leading cities of Bengal. Far as the eye could reach, it teemed 
with human life. Thousands flocked from many a point and 
pressed to where the gaudy flags and beating drums told of the 
approaching Poojah. Here a number of bamboo and leaf sheds 
had been erected, where amusements of various sorts were in 
progress or preparation. But what fixed his eye were " several 
huge poles standing at a great height, with ropes and some ap- 
paratus attached to them, the use of which I knew from report 
alone." Eeport was speedily to be confirmed by experience. A 
young and pretty girl was the first victim. " It appeared that 
her husband had, months since, gone upon some distant dangerous 
journey, and that, being long absent, and rumors raised in the 
native bazaar of his death, she, the anxious wife, had vowed to 
Siva, the protector of life, to undergo self-torture on his next 
festival if her loved husband's life should be spared. He had 
returned, and now, mighty in faith and love, this simple-minded, 
single-hearted creature gave up herself to pain such as the 
stoutest of our sex or race might shrink from. She sat looking 
fondly on her little infant as it lay asleep in the arms of an old 



248 



CURIOSITIES OF 



nurse, all unconscious of the mother's sacrifice, and, turning her 
eyes from that to her husband, who stood near in a wild, excited 
state, she gave the signal that she was ready. The slout-limbed, 
burly-bodied husband rushed like a tiger at such of the crowd as 
attempted to press too near the sacrificial girl; be had a staif in 
his hand, and with it played such a tune on bare and turbaned 




Churruk Poojah in a Bengal Village. 



heads and ebony shoulders as brought down many an angry 
malediction on the player. The nurse with the infant moved 
farther away among the crowd of admiring spectators. Two or 
three persons, men and women, pressed forward to adjust the 
horrid-looking hooks. Was it possible, I thought, that those 
huge instruments of torture, heavy enough to hold an elephant, 
were to be forced into the flesh of that gentle girl ! I felt sick 
as I saw the poor child stretched upon her face, and first one and 
then the other of those ugly, crooked pieces of iron forced slowly 
through the flesh and below the muscles of her back. They 
lifted her up, and as I watched her I saw big drops of perspira- 
tion starting from her forehead ; her small eyes seemed closed at 
first, and, for the moment, I fancied she had fainted ; but as they 
raised her to her feet and then quickly drew her up in the air 
high above us, hanging by those two horrid hooks, 1 saw her 
looking down quite placidly. She sought her husband out, and, 
seeing him watching her eagerly, gave him a smile, and, waving 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 249 

her little hands, drew from her bosom small pieces of the sacred 
cocoanut and flung them amidst the gazing crowd. To scramble 
ior and obtain one of these precious fragments was deemed a 
fortunate thing, for they were supposed to contain all sorts of 
charmed powers. 

"And now the Poojah was fairly commenced. The ropes 
which carried the iron hooks were so arranged that by pulling 
one end — which passed over the top of the pole — it swung round 
a plate of iron which set in motion the other ropes holding the 
hooks and the living operator. Two men seized on this rope, and 
soon the poor girl was in rapid flight over the heads of the crowd, 
who cheered her on by a variety of wild cries, and shouts, and 
songs. Not that she seemed to need encouragement ; her eyes 
were still bent towards her husband ; I almost fancied she smiled 
as she caught his eye. There was no sign of pain, or shrinking, 
or yielding : she bore it as many a hero of the old world would 
have been proud to have done, scattering beneath her flowers 
and fruit among the busy throng. 

" I felt as though a heavy weight were off my mind when I 
perceived the whirling motion of the ropes first to slacken, and 
then to cease, and finally the girl, all bleeding, relieved from the 
cruel torture. They laid her on a mat beneath some shady trees : 
the women gave her a draught of cool water in a cocoanut-shell. 
But her thoughts were not upon herself: she looked anxiously 
around, and could not be satisfied until her husband sat beside 
her and their little swarthy infant was placed within her arms. 
The only care her deep and open wounds received was to have 
them rubbed with a little turmeric powder and covered with the 
fresh tender leaf of a banana." 

Another votary was an aged niother, v^hose prayers (she be- 
lieved) had saved the life of her son. The vow had been made, 
and the deliverance effected, eleven years before ; but the poor 
people had never been able till then to incur the expenses of the 
offering to the god and the feast with which these solemnities are 
always closed. With the utmost heroism this aged woman en- 
dured the whole, shouting aloud with the spectators, and scat- 
tering her flowers with flurried enthusiasm. Her son, a man of 
thirty years, was present, and in a state of greater excitement 
than his mother, to whom he paid the most anxious attention, and 
to whose devotion he evidently believed he owed the continuance 
of his life. 

Other victims, of all ages and both sexes, followed, and bore 
their self-chosen tortures with similar equanimity. The British 
government has made several attempts to suppress the Chiirruk 
Poojah, but so recently as 1893 an artist correspondent of the 
Illustrated London News forwarded an illustrated description to 



250 CURIOSITIES OF 

that paper of a festival of this sort witnessed in the neighbor- 
hood of Calcutta. 

Circumcision. According to Genesis xvii. 9-14, Grod gave 
Abraham the command to circumcise every male child on the 
eighth day after birth, " and it shall be a token of the covenant 
betwixt me and you." Christian commentators look upon this 
rite as a token that through the shedding of the blood of the 
future Eedeemer remission of the original sin inherited from 
Adam could alone be obtained. It also signified that the Jews 
were cut off and separate from all other nations. By circumcis- 
ion a Jew became a party to the covenant, was consecrated to the 
service of God, and agreed to accept his revelation and obey his 
commandments. In other words, this outward sign admitted 
him to true knowledge of God, true worship of God, and true 
obedience to God's moral law. But, inasmuch as it pointed to 
the coming of Christ, it was abolished with his advent and its 
place was taken by baptism, which also is a sign of covenant 
with God, admitting to true worship, true knowledge, and true 
obedience. But baptism is more than circumcision ; it is more 
than a mere covenant ; it is a sacrament, whereby supernatural 
power, or grace, is given to the child to enable it to carry out the 
covenant. Christ submitted to circumcision, not because he had 
inherited the sin of Adam, or needed grace, but because he came 
to fulfil all righteousness, to accomplish the law, and for the letter 
to give the spirit. 

By the Jews circumcision is still practised with all the ancient 
ceremonies. Sometimes when the child is ill or weak it is de- 
ferred beyond the eight days mentioned in the law. A godmother 
brings the child to the place and carries it back again. But 
neither she nor any other woman is admitted to the ceremony. 
The place may be a private house as well as the synagogue. The 
godmother delivers the infant at the door to the godfather, and 
when borne within it is greeted with cries of " Baruc Habba !" 
or " Welcome !" The Mohel, or Circumciser, is waiting among a 
circle of male friends. In a dish are all the necessaries, — a razor, 
astringent powder, rags, cotton, and oil of roses. The operation 
over, the Mohel takes a cup of wine, blesses it once, and then 
repeats a second benediction for the child, who now receives the 
name chosen for him. 

The 128th Psalm is now repeated, and then the child is handed 
back to the godmother. 

Among the Mohammedans circumcision is practised, but not 
until the boy is old enough to make his own profession of faith. 
It was a legacy from the pre-Mohammedan Arabs, who are said 
to have learned it from the Ishmaelites, the descendants of the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 251 

son of Hagar. The custom is also derived from the Jews by the 
Egyptians, Colchians. Phoenicians, and Ethiopians, but rather as 
a method of promoting health and warding off certain diseases 
than as a religious rite. 

In the " Eomance of Lady Burton's Life" a rather amusing 
paragraph is quoted from a letter written from Damascus : 

" We went to every kind of ceremony, v^hether it was a cir- 
cumcision, or a wedding, or a funeral, or a dervish dance, or any- 
thing that was going on ; and we mixed with all classes, and 
religions, and races, and tongues. I remember my first invitation 
was to a grand /e^e to celebrate the circumcision of a youth about 
ten years of age. He was very pretty, and was dressed in gor- 
geous garments covered with jewelry. Singing, dancing, and 
feasting went on for about three days. The ceremony took place 
quite publicly. There was a loud clang of music and firing of 
guns to drown the boy's cries, and with one stroke of a circular 
knife the operation was finished in a second. The part cut off 
was then handed round on a silver salver, as if to force all pres- 
ent to attest that the rite had been performed. I felt quite sick, 
and English modesty overpowered curiosity, and I could not look. 
Later on, when I grew more used to Eastern ways, I was forced 
to accept the compliment paid to the highest rank, and a great 
compliment to me as a Christian, to hold the boy in my arms 
whilst the ceremony was being performed. It was rather curious 
at first to be asked to a circumcision, as one might be asked to a 
christening in England or a ' small and early.' " 

Clavie, Burning of the. A curious semi-jocular ceremony, a 
relic of some ancient pagan rite, celebrated on the 11th of Jan- 
uary (the last day of the year, Old Style) in the fishing town of 
Burghead, situated on the south shore of Moray Firth, Moray- 
shire, Scotland. The headland on which Burghead is situated 
was for ages held by the marauding Norsemen, even after their 
final overthrow by Malcolm II. in 1010. Before the Norsemen 
set foot upon it, it is believed to have been held by the Eomans, 
and to have been the northernmost point reached in Britain by 
the conquerors of the world. 

On the evening of the 11th of January all the fishermen of 
the village assemble about dusk and proceed to some shop, where 
they demand a strong empty barrel. This is usually surrendered 
at once, but, if refused, it is taken by force. Another barrel, for 
breaking up, and a quantity of tar, are procured in the same way. 
A hole about four inches in diameter is made in the bottom of 
the strongerbarrel, through which a stone pole five feet in length 
is inserted. The barrel is filled with tar and set on fire. The 
remaining barrel is then broken up, and stave after stave is 



252 CURIOSITIES OF 

thrown into the bonfire. The Clavie, burning fiercely, is now 
shouldered by one of the fishernien, who rushes along one of the 
streets, followed by the crowd. At the end of the street he is 
relieved by another fisherman. In this way every street in the 
village is gone through, the Clavie being replenished from time 
to time. Formerly the procession visited all the fishing- boats, 
but this has been discontinued for some time. When the pro- 
cession has passed through the village, the Clavie is deposited 
on the top of a little mound called the Durie. This mound is 
interesting as being a portion of the ancient fortifications, spared 
probably for use in this particular ceremony. On this mound 
the present proprietor (1897) has erected a small round column, 
with a cavity in the centre for the admission of the fire end of 
the pole. Here the Clavie is left to burn far into the night. It 
is then broken up and the embers are scattered. The people 
rush upon the pieces. Every fragment is carefully gathered up 
and carried home to be preserved as a charm against witchcraft. 
At one time superstition invested the whole proceedings with all 
the solemnity of a religious rite. The whole fishing population 
joined in it as an act necessary to the welfare of the little com- 
munity during the year about to commence. 

No landsman can take part in the programme. Even strange 
fishermen are forbidden to participate. About 1830 a colony of 
fishermen from Campbelltown (Inverness-shire) settled in Burg- 
head. After a few years' residence they were allowed to accom- 
pany the procession. The strangers grew and multiplied until 
they became almost as numerous as the Burgheaders. Feeling 
their strength, they decided that it would be more in accordance 
with the fitness of things if the Clavie were burnt on the evening 
of the 3l8t of December instead of the 11th of January. The 
innovation was fiercely resisted, and after a protracted struggle 
the strangers had to succumb. A curious superstition connected 
with the ceremony is that should any one fall in the rush along 
the streets it is a sign that he will never be present at another 
Clavie-burning. So sure are they of this, that should the Clavie- 
bearer for the time fall, another at once seizes the fiery mass, 
and, without waiting for the fallen man to rise, the crowd rushes 
onward, at the imminent risk of trampling him under foot. 

This remnant of paganism, now slowly dying out in the lone 
village of Burghead, was once common throughout Scotland. 
Some say that it is of Scandinavian origin, and others that it is 
purely Celtic. There is no authority for either statement. The 
ceremony was probably performed by both races. It is certain 
that in the beginning of the last century the kirk-session of In- 
veravon forbade the "heathenish custom" and took steps to put 
it down. A minute to that effect is recorded in the session-books. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 253 

Inveravon is a parish in the Highlands of Banffshire, where 
probably the foot of Norseman never trod, thus showing that the 
ceremony was practised by the Highlanders. 

It is believed that the mysterious rite was originated for the 
purpose of frightening witches. No doubt the belief in it among 
the fishermen degenerated into something like that; but the 
origin of the Clavie lies deeper. The use of a stone hammer in- 
stead of an iron one in constructing the Clavie is by sonie held 
as indicating that the ceremony was in existence in the stone 
age. The Clavie, in short, appears to be the remnant of a religious 
belief, and is probably connected with fire-worship. {Notes and 
Queries^ Second Series, vol. ix. pp. 38, 106, 169, 269 ; Book of 
Days, vol. ii. pp. 789-791. See also John the Baptist, St.) 

Clebach's Fountain. A holy well in the southern slope of 
Cruachan, near Roscommon, Ireland. The legend is that St. 
Patrick met here the two daughters of King Leoghaire, Fedelm 
and Ethna, as they came from the royal palace of Bath Crua- 
chan to bathe in the fountain. The maidens wondered at sight 
of the venerable stranger, surrounded by his monks, and they 
questioned him eagerly as to who he was, and whence he came, 
and what king he served. When Patrick told the lofty message 
that he bore, the grace of God touched the hearts of the maidens, 
so that they believed and were baptized in the waters of the 
fountain, which the saint blessed for the purpose. They begged 
for the eucharistic bread, and after it was given them they prayed 
that they might be united to their spouse and king forever. And 
the flush of health left their cheek, and they calmly sank to sleep 
in death. Their bodies were laid side by side at Clebach's foun- 
tain, which became one of the holy wells of Erin, famous for the 
miracles that were wrought by its waters. 

Clement, St., patron of farriers and blacksmiths. Little 
authentic is known about him, but ecclesiastical tradition repre- 
sents him as a blacksmith who was converted to Christianity in 
the reign of Domitian, became Bishop of Rome, and was mar- 
tyred November 23, a.d. 100, by being bound to an anchor and 
cast into the sea. Hence the anchor is his attribute in art. The 
church of St. Clement Danes in London had formerly an anchor 
for a vane, the parish boundaries are still indicated by an anchor, 
while the beadles bear an anchor on their staves and buttons. 

Popular English myth has added some astonishing details to 
this saint's legend. He is represented as the son of St. Catherine, 
as the first founder of brass, iron, and steel from the ore, and as 
the first man who ever shoed a horse. It is added that he was 
crowned king of all trades by Alfred. 



254 CVRtOSlTlES OF 

His festival on November 23 is still celebrated in rural Eng- 
land by the children in what is known as Clemmening, which 
consists in a house-to-house quest for gratuities of apples. For- 
merly this was the custom of the blacksmiths, who added beer 
or wine to their desiderata. Hence the bibulous survival in the 
following doggerel which the children of Staffordshire sing during 
their rounds : 

Clemany ! Clemany ! Clemany mine ! 

A good red apple and a pint of wine, 

Some of your mutton and some of your veal, 

If it is good, pray give me a deal ; 

If it is not, pray give me some salt. 

Butler, butler, fill your bowl ; 

If thou fill'st it of the best, 

The Lord'll send your soul to rest ; 

If thou fill'st it of the small, 

Down goes butler, bowl and all. 

Pray, good mistress, send to me 

One for Peter, one for Paul, 

One for Him who made us all : 

Apple, pear, plum, or cherry. 

Any good thing to make us merry ; 

A bouncing buck and a velvet chair, 

Clement comes but once a year ; 

Off with the pot and on with the pan, 

A good red apple and I'll be gone. 

{Notes and Queries, First Series, vol. viii. p. 618.) 

Owing to the proximity of St. Clement's feast to that of his 
" mother" (November 25), Catterning and Clemmening are often 
merged into one ceremony which spreads over three days. In 
Sussex the children sing this rhyme : 

Cattern and Clemen be here, here, here, 
Give us your apples and give us your beer. 
I One for Peter, two for Paul, 

Three for Him who made us all. 

Clemen was a good man, 

Cattern was his mother : 

Give us your best, 

And not your worst. 

And God will give your soul good rest. 

The blacksmiths in England still celebrate St. Clement's Day 
locally by dressing up an effigy or one of their own number in a 
long cloak, an oakum wig, a long white beard, and a mask. This 
figure, knowai as Old Clem, is placed in a chair with a wooden 
anvil in front of him and in his hands a pair of tongs and a 
wooden hammer. Sometimes he is raerelj^ made the subject of 
toasts and the presiding oflScer of the merrymakings. At other 
times he is taken round on an eleemosynary quest. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 255 

Such a procession, with a live Old Clem at its head, was cele- 
brated as late as 1826 (see " Every Day Book," vol. i. p. 1501) 
by the blacksmiths' apprentices of the dock-yard at Woolwich. 
The Old Clem of the occasion was made to recite the following 
speech : 

" I am the real St. Clement, the first founder of brass, iron, and 
steel, from the ore. I have been to Mount Etna, where the god 
Yulcan first built his forge, and forged the armor and thunder- 
bolts for the god Jupiter. T have been through the deserts of 
Arabia; through Asia, Africa, and America; through the city 
of Pongrove, through the town of Jipmingo, and all the north- 
ern parts of Scotland. I arrived in London on the 23d of No- 
vember, and came down to his Majesty's dock-yard at Wool- 
wich to see how all the gentleman Yulcans came on there. I 
found them all hard at work, and wish to leave them well on the 
24th." 

Old Clem's memory is still kept green in many of the govern- 
ment dock-yards by mumming and feasting. The master-black- 
smiths often give their employees a wayz-goose, a leg of pork 
stuffed with sage and onions, on this day. The Brighton Eail- 
wa}' Company's smiths hold an annual supper at White Horse 
Inn. The anvils used to be fired with gunpowder, but this part 
of the ceremonial has now been discontinued. 

Coat, Holy. This is the general name given to certain relics 
which are said to have been garments worn by Christ during his 
earthly life. The most famous of these is the Holy Coat pre- 
served at Trier, or Treves, in Germany, claimed to be the seam- 
less garment for which the Eoman soldiers cast lots during the 
crucifixion. It is a tunic about five feet long, cut narrow at the 
shoulders and gradually widening towards the knees. It is 
woven in one piece without seams. The material is supposed to 
be linen, but its great age prevents any exact examination. It 
is enclosed in an outer casing of purple and gold cloth, supposed 
to have been added some time in the seventh century in order to 
preserve the relic. Many miracles are claimed to have been 
performed by this robe, and it is said still to possess great merit. 

Its history for the last seven hundred years is clear enough. 
But darkness shrouds the story of the relic prior to the twelfth 
century. The Church relies for proof of its authenticity upon 
a tradition that it Avas one of a chest-full of relics sent as a gift 
to the church at Treves by the Empress Helena to celebrate the 
conversion to Christianity of her son the Emperor Constantine. 
She herself had found the coat while on her pilgrimage to Jeru- 
salem in search of the true Cross (see Cross, Invention of the). 
The cathedral in which it is now housed was built a.d. 550 on the 



256 



CURIOSITIES OF 



site (still according to legend) of an ancient Roman palace which 
was the birthplace of St. Helena. The legend goes on to say 
that in the ninth century the Holy Coat was concealed from the 
Normans in a crypt of the cathedral. There it remained for- 
gotten until 1196, when it was rediscovered and placed in the 
high altar. Just about here authentic history supersedes legend. 
Jn 1512 Leo X. ordered that the coat should be exposed to the 
veneration of the faithful. The multitudes who flocked to see it 




St. Helena and the Holy Coat. 



were so great that the Pope decided on a public exposition every 
seven years. But the disturbances that followed the Reforma- 
tion prevented the regular observance of this great religious 
festival, and during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the 
coat was deposited for safety in the castle of Ehrenbreitstein, on 
the Rhine. In 1810, with the permission of Napoleon, the 
Bishop of Treves, Mgr. Mann ay, brought the sacred relic back 
to his own city, and, in spite of the confusion of the times, a 
multitude of pilgrims, numbering over two hundred thousand, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 257 

visited Treves to celebrate this joyful restoration. In granting 
the desired permission, Napoleon added the characteristic condi- 
tion that " the working of miracles was to be forbidden." Hence 
a revival of the famous epigram, — 

De par le Koi, defense a Dieu 
De faire miracle en ce lieu. 

In 1844 a still more successful exposition of the Holy Coat 
took place. 

Since the Middle Ages no such pilgrimage had been known, 
and no mediaeval shrine could have attracted the same number 
of people in the same space of time, — from August 18 to October 
6, — for it is said that one million five hundred thousand devotees 
visited the high altar on which the coat was placed. They came 
from all quarters, many from long distances, travelling on foot, 
preceded by their village priests and by surpliced boys bearing 
banners. All the inns and lodging-houses of the town were 
crammed, and not a vacant room which the owners were willing 
to let could be had after the first week for either love or money. 
But it was summer, and there was little hardship in sleeping on 
staircases, in outhouses, or even in the streets and squares, with 
the pilgrim wallets for pillows. Every morning at early dawn 
the eager sight-seers took up their posts by the cathedral doors, 
until a line of more than a mile in length was formed, so that it 
was difiicult for any save the head of the procession to reach the 
coat much under three hours. The heat, dust, and fatigue ex- 
hausted many, who fainted by the way, while the pent-up excite- 
ment of others gave way to hysteria as they made their oblations 
before the sacred object. 

There being no Napoleon to forbid miracles, they broke out 
with great violence. The most noteworthy case w^as that of a 
young woman, the Countess of Droste Yischering, who ap- 
proached the altar on crutches, one of her legs having been con- 
tracted by a scrofulous swelling of the knee, and after praying 
before the relic succeeded in bringing her foot to the floor and 
walking out of the cathedral, though her leg had been bent at 
an angle of nearly forty-five degrees for years. Naturally, so 
astounding a case caused a commotion in medical as well as re- 
ligious circles. The miraculous nature, as well as the permanency, 
of the cure was disputed. It was an excellent subject for scien- 
tific inquiry, but none was made. A month after the sensational 
scene in the cathedral a physician certified that the improvement 
miraculously begun (it was not claimed that she was instantane- 
ously cured, but only that through the rehc she had received the 
power to stretch the contracted member) was still in progress. 
Then the countess, who was a grand-niece of the Bishop of 

17 



258 CURIOSITIES OF 

Cologne, whose cathedral is also rich in relics, entered a cloister, 
and the world heard nothing more of her except that she per- 
formed the duties of a Sister of Mercy. She and her story live 
in a Commersbuch of the German students in a ballad beginning, — 

Freifrau von Droste Vischering, 

Vi va Vischering, 
Zum Hell "gen Kock nach Triere ging, 

Tri tra Triere ging. 

The scenes of 1844 were repeated and magnified in 1891, 
when the Holy Coat was once more exposed to public adoration. 
The ceremonies began on August 20, and lasted six weeks. They 
opened in an impressive manner. " After the provost had read 
the protocol of the last locking-up of the relic last year," writes 
a correspondent of the London Standard^ "the cathedral archi- 
tect and two other gentlemen opened the high altar and broke 
large masses of stone out of it with heavy crowbars. A box 
about two metres long was then lifted out and opened, and a 
long document and a smaller box, covered with leather, were 
taken out. The latter was opened, when a third box, of metal 
closed with six seals and containing the sacred garment, came to 
hght. On this third box lay another document. Bishop Korum 
then threw a red cloth over the third box, and bore it himself, 
assisted by the provost, to the treasure-chamber, where it was 
opened after the seals had been examined and found intact. The 
bishop then took out the sacred garment, which was enveloped 
in blue, red, and white silk wrappers. These the bishop re- 
moved, and then spread out the coat on the table. He then read 
the passage in St. John's Grospel referring to the coat, and then 
admitted the persons invited to see it. Nobody, however, was 
allowed to touch it, this privilege being reserved for the bishop 
alone." 

The relic was exhibited in its full length and breadth, hanging 
in an oaken shrine, lined with white silk, open in front, and 
draped with costly silk, adorned with braid and tassels of gold. 
On the main spire of the cathedral had been erected a large flag- 
staff, from which, during the exposition of the reHc, there 
flouted a flag with a red cross on a white ground. A thousand 
citizens of Treves watched beside the relic during the exposition. 

The Berlin correspondent of the New York Herald cabled as 
follows under date of August 20,1891: "The garment known 
as the Holy Coat was exposed to view this morning in the cathe- 
dral at Treves. Two Knights of Malta in full costume, with 
drawn swords in their hands, stood on either side of the shrine 
enclosing the Holy Coat case, which was surrounded by tall 
lighted candlesticks and surmounted by a large gold cross. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 259 

There was an impressive scene in the sanctuary. Over a hun- 
dred priests assisted in the pontifical high mass which fohowed 
thfe unveiling of the Coat. The cathedral was richly decorated 
for the occasion, and was packed to the doors with people. The 
white surplices of the choir, the gorgeous vestments of the 
priests, the scarlet uniforms of the Knights of Malta, the count- 
less hghts flickering in every nook and coiner, the prismatic rays 
filtering through the old windows, the strange congregation com- 
posed of people of many nations and all walks of life, formed a 
picture not often seen. Bishop Korum during the course of his 
address earnestly urged the faithful to unite in revering the gar- 
ment from which power and virtue proceed. The nave of the 
cathedral was then cleared, so as to enable the municipal author- 
ities and the parochial societies to march up to the shrine of the 
Holy Coat and venerate that relic. Treves is overflowing with 
pilgrims and with visitors. The streets are filled with proces- 
sions of all descriptions, and sacred banners, crosses, and lighted 
candles are to be seen on all sides. During the whole time the 
Holy Coat is on exhibition about twenty excursion trains a day 
will arrive at Treves, a very great number for a Continental city, 
and a large temporary railroad station has been built for the 
pilgrims ; but in order that the town may not be overcrowded 
the difl'erent bands of pilgrims, led by their priests, will only be 
permitted to remain one night in town. Arriving, say, in the 
evening, they will march the next morning in procession to the 
cathedral, and must leave town the same evening, in order to 
make way for other religious bodies of people," 

Next to the relic at Treves the most famous of all Holy Coats 
is that at Argenteuil. This also claims to be the seamless gar- 
ment of Christ. Legend traces it back to the Roman soldier who 
won it by lot. The record declares that it was bought from this 
soldier and guarded vigilantly in various countries till it came 
into the possession of the Empress Irene, who sent it to Charle- 
magne. The latter presented it to his daughter Theodrada, Ab- 
bess of Argenteuil. 

This coat is about five feet long by three and a half feet 
wide. The left sleeve is missing, and a large piece has been 
taken from the left side. The garment is hand-woven, and is of 
camels' hair. It lies in a casket, and has a reddish tone like that 
of a dried rose. Every afternoon from Ascension Day to Whit 
Monday the shrine in which the relic is kept is carried in pro- 
cession through the Argenteuil church. The garment is ex- 
hibited in its entirety only at rare intervals, as it is placed under 
seal by the Bishop of Versailles, in whose diocese Argenteuil is. 
He alone has authority, with the sanction of the Pope, to open 
the casket. In the year 1862 Pope Pius IX. secured a small 



260 CURIOSITIES OF 

fragment of the garment, and the other two small pieces were 
cut off ^t the same lime. These pieces are in two small caskets 
which the faithful are allowed to kiss while kneeling at the altar. 
It is said that the relic has recently been examined with a 
microscope, and that traces of what was believed to be blood 
were found on it. Miraculous cures are alleged to have been 
effected by means of this relic. Lord Clifford's eldest son, the 
Count de Damas, and the Marquis of Harcourt, are among those 
said to have been cured. 

" The Holy Coat of Argenteuil has recently been submitted by 
the Bishop of Yersailles to a close examination at the hands of 
experts of the Gobelins Factory. They report that the cloth is a 
sort of bunting, the texture of which is not close, but soft and 
light. The warp and weft are of exactly the same thickness 
and nature. The garment has been woven on a loom of the most 
primitive kind. The raw material of the texture is fine wool. 
They found a complete identity, both as to raw material and 
manufacture, in the fabric examined and in the ancient fabrics 
found in Christian tombs of the second and third centuries of 
our era. Samples of the coat were also submitted to several 
distinguished chemists, who report that the stains in them were 
produced by human blood. From all the circumstances of the 
analysis they presume this blood to be very ancient." (Antiquary, 
December, 1893.) A paper contributed by Emile Gautier to the 
JVew Science Review (New York) for October, 1894, gives further 
particulars. 

Other coats said to have belonged to Christ are preserved at 
Moscow, Yenice, and other places. The pious Catholic explains 
their existence by saying that Christ probably had several gar- 
ments during the thirty- three years of his life. Therefore they 
may all be genuine. As to the question which is the seamless 
coat gambled for by the soldiers, the majority of Catholics will 
cast their vote for the relic at Treves. 

Coat of Mohammed. This Mohammedan counterpart to the 
Holy Coat of Treves is preserved at Constantinople in the shrine 
of Eski-Serai, and is exhibited to the adoration of the faithful 
twice in every hundred years. The last exposition was in 1896. 
The Holy Coat of Mohammed, according to tradition, was pre- 
sented by the Prophet to a Yemen dervish, Was-ul-Karani, as a 
token of gratitude for his services in discovering the use and 
preparation of coffee. It is a kind of chukva, or robe, with flow- 
ing sleeves somewhat similar to Western dressing-gowns, which 
is worn in the Levant by those whom foreigners are accustomed 
to designate as Turks of the old school. It is needless to add 
that its color is green, — the hue above all others sacred to the^ 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 261 

Prophet. The extent to which the garment is venerated by all 
true behevers may be estimated from the fact that the most cher- 
ished title of the Sultan is Hadum-ul-Haremeen, or guardian of 
the holy relic. The coat was brought to Constantinople by the 
Sultan Selira I., along with the keys of the holy cities of Mecca 
and Medina, from Cairo, where all had been preserved until that 
time in the keeping of the Caliphs. The shrine in which it was 
placed by Sultan Selim, and where it has remained ever since 
until this day, is within the precincts of the Imperial Treasury 
at Gulchane. 

The last exposition of the Prophet's coat was made in 1895. 
The Sultan left bis palace in company with old Osman Grhazi 
Pasha, the hero of Plevna. Alighting at the Bab-ul-Saida, or 
Sublime Porte, he, with his own hands, unlocked, by means of a 
massive golden key, the silver grating or cage which protects 
the Holy of Holies from intrusion by the profane. With an- 
other key of the same precious metal he proceeded to open a 
huge cupboard or box composed of the purest and most massive 
gold, and to extract therefrom a bundle, which he placed on a 
silver table of great beauty. One by one the Sultan then re- 
moved the forty outer cloths in which the Holy Coat was 
wrapped up, until the last but one was reached. The latter 
consists of some thin, transparent kind of gauze, and is left 
intact. For no mortal eye may behold nor human lips touch 
the sacred relic unshrouded. Eeverently, and with every token 
of the utmost veneration, the Sultan bent and kissed the dingy- 
looking bundle, his example being followed by the Sheik-ul- 
Islam, the Grand Vizier, and the various chief dignitaries of the 
realm according to their rank, during which time verses of the 
Koran were chanted by the ulema. 

Subsequently all the men withdrew, and, under the guidance 
of his highness Yaver Aga, the grand eunuch of the imperial 
seraglio, the Yalide Sultana, or mother empress, along with the 
various wives of the monarch and princesses of the family, ap- 
peared upon the scene and likewise paid their respects to the 
Holy Coat. As soon as they had closed their devotions and 
departed, the Sultan carefully wrapped up the bundle again in 
the nine-and-thirty wrappers which he had removed, after which 
he replaced it in its gold cupboard, locked it, as well as its silver 
cage or grating, and returned to his palace at Yildiz Kiosk be- 
tween a double line of troops, who kept a path open through the 
vast multitude of people for the imperial procession. In the 
evening the Sultan sent to all those who had been present at 
this ceremony small white cambric handkerchiefs with the verses 
of the Koran embroidered on them, which had been specially 
consecrated at Mecca for the purpose. 



262 CURIOSITIES OF 

Besides this, splendid presents were made by the Padishah to 
the Sheik-ul-Islam, the primate of the Turkish Church, and also 
to Yaver Aga, a coal-black and gigantic negro, who is addressed 
as " Your Highness" and ranks with the Grand Vizier and bears 
the title of " Dar ul Sadr Aghassi," which rendered in English 
means " he whose post is behind the door of the sanctuary of 
bliss." The Grand Yizier and the ministers also received 
tokens of imperial good will in the shape of jewelry and decora- 
tions. 

Cocoanut Day. A Hindoo festival celebrating the concilia- 
tion of land and sea. It is thus described by the Times of India, 
September, 1896 : 

" Cocoanut Day — the conciliation of Neptune — has just been 
celebrated in India. God Neptune is a most important deity, 
and it is always advisable to keep him in good humor. There is 
no saying otherwise how his friend Yaruna may blow the mon- 
soons. The cocoanut day, of course, marks the subsidence of 
god Neptune's playfulness, when the hoary deity made some fun 
by leading the ' floating palace' of the humans a nice little dance 
on his frisky waves. 

" We set about god Neptune's propitiation in right royal style. 
Brahmins, of course, come in as the pivot of the affair. We all 
of us — unless we are too old, or sickly, or lame, or too much 
engrossed in self-admiration — repair to the sea-shore, taking 
with us a lot of materials of worship, as an offering to the water- 
deity. We move some distance into the water; the Brahmin 
stands in the middle and recites hymns; and we, surrounding 
him, respectfully offer our cocoanuts, and flowers, and milk, and 
sugar-candy, and fragrant powders, to the sea-god. One supreme 
honor still remains behind, and we render it. We make lights, 
and wave them before the pacified divinity. Most of us formerly 
used to throw the cocoanuts right into the sea, but, as the Brah- 
mins took them up and made them their own, we now, in order 
to save trouble to the holy men, give them straight into their 
hands. 

"In Kurrachee and other ports they throw the cocoanuts into 
the sea, where Mussulman boat-people get hold of them and sell 
them later to the Bunnias in the bazaar, whence they come back 
to us as edibles. These Mohammedan boat-wallahs are expert 
swimmers ; and though the little Arab fellows at Aden and Port 
Said, we are told, perform some marvellous feats of diving, in 
bringing up silver coin thrown to them, their Moslem confreres 
of the Indian ports are not less expert in personal navigation. 
Once our offerings to the deity are made, it matters not to whom 
they go. So it is perfectly indifferent to us whether the Brah- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 263 

min youngsters eat the cocoanuts or Moslem boat-people collect 
them in boatfuls. 

"There is no particular reason why cocoanuts, of all nuts, 
should be oifered to the water-deity. Any other fruits too may 
be offered. Only the cocoanut is the tropical fruit par excellence, 
and, as it is pre-eminently ' watery,' we imagine god Neptune 
may just fancy it better. But we do not simply give the cocoa- 
nuts to the Brahmins : we accompany them with some money 
present. Nothing can be given to the Brahmins unless her 
majesty's coin accompanies the gift. But they eminently de- 
serve it, on some occasions. In ceremonies in which ablutions 
or any sort of ' water- taking' comes in, we do the thing and 
pass on. But the Brahmins remain constantly in the water, 
ministering to every succeeding batch, — which means standing 
several hours together in wet. And yet they never develop 
bronchitis. I suppose it is a case of adaptation to the spiritual 
environment." 

Collop Monday. The Monday before Shrove Tuesday, so 
called because, says Hone, " it was the last day of flesh-eating 
before Lent, and our forefathers cut their flesh meat into collops, 
or steaks, for salting and hanging up until Lent was over." 
Polydore Yirgil says of this season " that it sprang from the 
feasts of Bacchus, which were formerly celebrated in Eome at 
the same period." Collop Monday, therefore, may be only an 
adaptation from the heathen. In confirmation it may be added 
that at this period the Eton boys write verses to Bacchus. 

Yerses are still written and put up on this day, but the young 
poets are not confined to eulogiums on the god of wine. Never- 
theless the day still retains its old name of Bacchus. In Corn- 
wall the day is termed Hall Monday. About the dusk of the 
evening it is the custom for boys, and in some cases for those 
who are above the age of boys, to prowl about the streets with 
short clubs, and to knock loudly at every door, running oft' to 
escape detection on the slightest sign of a motion within. If, 
however, no attention be excited, and especially if any article 
be discovered negligently exposed or carelessly guarded, then 
the things are carried away, and on the following morning are 
discovered displayed in some conspicuous place, to expose the 
disgraceful want of vigilance supposed to characterize the owner. 
The time when this is practised is called "Nickanan night;" and 
the individuals concerned are supposed to represent some imps 
of darkness who take advantage of unguarded moments. 

On the following evening (Shrove Tuesday) the clubs are 
again in requisition ; but on this occasion the blows on the door 
keep time to the following chant : 



264 CURIOSITIES OF 

Nicka, nicka, nan ; 

Give me some pancake, and then I'll be gone. 

But if you give me none, 

I'll throw a great stone, 

And down your doors shall come. 

{Report of the Royal Institution of Cornwall for 1842 : 
Notes and Queries, First Series, vol. xii. p. 297.) 

In the neighborhood of Bridestow, Okehampton, England, 
the children go round to the different houses in the parish on 
this day, generally by twos and threes, and chant the following 
verses, by way of extracting from the inmates sundry contri- 
butions of eggs, flour, butter, halfpence, etc., to furnish out the 
Tuesday's feast : 

Lent Crock, give a pancake, 

Or a fritter, for my labor. 

Or a dish of flour, or a piece of bread. 

Or what you please to render. 

I see by the latch 

There's something to catch ; 

I see by the string 

There's a good dame within. 

Trap, trapping throw, 

Give me my mumps, and I'll be go [gone]. 

The above is the most popular version, and the one indigenous 
to the place ; but there is another set, which was introduced 
some years ago by a late school-mistress, who was a native of 
another part of the country, where her version was customary : 

Shrovetide is nigh at hand, 

And we are come a-shroving ; 

Pray, dame, give something. 

An apple, or a dumpling, 

Or a piece of crumple cheese. 

Of your own making. 

Or a piece of pancake. 

Trip, trapping throw. 

Give me my mumps, and I'll be go. 

This custom existed also in the neighborhood of Salisbury. 
(Wotes and Queries, First Series, vol. v. p. 77 ; Popular Antiquities, 
1849, vol. i. p. 62.) 

Columban, St. (543-615.) A famous Irish saint, a native of 
Leinster, who about 595 with twelve brother monks travelled 
into France, founded the monasteries of Luxeuil and Fontaine, 
was banished by King Theodore (ostensibly because his views 
on mooted points of faith did not agree with those of the Frank- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 265 

ish Church, but really because of the freedom he used in repri- 
manding that prince for his libertinism), and finally retired into 
Italy, where he founded a religious house at Bobbio, near Naples. 
At the latter place he died on November 21, 615, which is the 
date on which he is commemorated. 

A small fragment of the original tomb of St. Columban, with 
its inscription, still remains in the church dedicated to the saint 
at Bobbio. The body itself was removed from its original grave 
in 1482, and placed in a new^ marble shrine beneath the altar in 
the midst of the crypt or subterranean church at Bobbio. But 
the entire body of the saint was not suffered to remain there. 
In accordance with a custom that prevailed in the latter part of 
the Middle Ages, the head or skull was in 1514 detached and 
placed in a beautifully wrought silver shrine that takes the 
form of a mitred bust. It is now kept in the sacristy of the 
church that bears his name. Other relics of the saint kept in 
the same sacristy are wooden cups, a little bell, and a knife, the 
latter of such virtue that bread cut with it is never liable to cor- 
ruption or putrescence, " and if women eat this bread when 
nursing it causes an abundance of milk, and moreover has great 
efficacy against the bites of mad dogs and against fevers." 
(Margaret Stokes : Six Months in the Apennines.) Miss Stokes 
adds a full account of the hermitage of La Spanna, near Bobbio, 
where, on the summit of a cliff, is a hand-print in the rock, said 
to have been marked by the impression of the palm (spanna) of 
St. Columban's hand, which is still believed to possess healing 
virtues for sufferers who place their palms upon it. 

Commencement. In English and American colleges, the 
day when degrees are conferred, the day when the graduating 
classes commence bachelors (or lawyers, or doctors, or what not). 
The term is now extended to academies and primary schools of 
all grades. In the mediaeval universities graduation was simply 
the conferring of a qualification and right to teach (or, in the 
case of law and medicine, to practise). 

Commencement, then, existed at first for those taking what 
are now called the higher degrees, and was the time when young 
men ceased to be pupils and commenced to teach. The bach- 
elor's degree marking the end of the trivium, or preparatory 
course, was first given at Paris ; and it seems that the bachelors 
were required to serve an apprenticeship at teaching, as a part 
of their preparation for the master's degree. The student hav- 
ing performed the requirements of the trivium, he was named a 
bachelor by the masters of that subject, and had now the right 
to wear a round cap, and not only the right, but the obligation, 
to teach freshmen. He was then said incipere in artibus (" to 



266 CURIOSITIES OF 

commence in arts"). Hence, even when extended to the gradu 
ation of bachelors, Commencement still carried the implication 
of commencing to teach. The requirement that all graduates 
should serve as teachers was gradually relaxed, till teaching was 
made entirely optional, and Commencement came to be, as at 
present, simply the occasion when degrees of all grades were 
conferred. 

"There is no season more delightful than Commencement. 
Every year that long, sparkling billow of youth breaks upon the 
shore of manhood, and each successive wave is as fresh and beau- 
tiful as all its predecessors. The president of a college annually 
confronting the graduating class, under the same circumstance 
of summer and roses, with the same associations, the same tender 
recollections, the same eager and proud anticipations, must feel 
himself to be a perpetual youth ; and if he gives a blessing to 
the class, not less does the class leave with him its benediction. 
His attitude, indeed, is that of Mentor, but he must feel that his 
counsel springs from experience, and, being addressed to those 
who have experience yet to gain, it is, after all, a kind of fairy 
lore, a singing in an unknown tongue. 

" But there has gathered around Commencement a multitude 
of delightful occasions all related to scholarly sympathy and 
association, and taking precedence even of the especial function 
of the season. The class-day exercises of the graduating class, 
the reunions of alumni, with their orations and dinners, the social 
festivals of the Greek-letter societies, from that of the venerable 
Alpha or Phi Beta Kappa down to the very last Omega of the 
mystic characters, and all these held at the chapter houses or 
rooms, for a day or two preceding Commencement Day itself, 
with every form of literary exercise and social entertainment in 
the most enchanting moment of the year, combine to throw a 
spell of June romance over young and susceptible hearts, which 
is not only delightful, but permanent, and gives to the Com- 
mencement season a singular power." (G-eorge W. Curtis.) 

Commercial Day. On December 19, 1895, a banquet was 
held at Delmonico's in New York by three hundred of its promi- 
nent citizens, under the auspices of the Commercial List afid 
Price Current, to celebrate not only the centenary of the publi- 
cation of this the oldest commercial paper in the country, but 
also that of the passage of the treaty of amity, commerce, and 
navigation between Great Britain and the United States which 
led directly to the founding of the newspaper on December 19, 
1795. At that banquet it was determined that the 19th of De- 
cember should henceforth be denominated Commercial Day and 
should be celebrated by an annual banquet of the leading mer- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 267 

chants and business-men of New York, in honor of the com- 
mercial treaty. 

The treaty itself, however, it should be borne in mind, has no 
direct connection with the day. The treaty had been negotiated 
by John Jay, of New York, who had been sent over for the 
purpose by Washington as Envoy Extraordinary of the United 
States, was ratified by the Senate, and formally approved by the 
President. 

The treaty secured to the United States freedom on the seas, 
privilege to trade with Great Britain, the withdrawal of all 
British posts from our territories, and a policy of non-inter- 
ference by the mother-country in affairs concerning the United 
States. 

The confidence it inspired in the business world by its recog- 
nition of this country as a treaty power, and the immediate ad- 
vantages it brought to American commerce, are shown in the 
fact that the foreign trade of the United States almost doubled 
in the single year following its making. But unfortunatelj^" it 
was arranged at a time when the American people were smarting 
under a sense of bitter wrong inflicted by Great Britain. Hence 
its many advantages were not at first fully appreciated. Polit- 
ical partisanship attacked it blindly, and the great party then 
clamoring for an alliance with France denounced it fiercely. In 
its support the calmer counsels of such statesmen as Washing- 
ton and Hamilton, representing the conservative and substantial 
elements of the nation, finally prevailed, and the treaty was 
adopted. Time has too fully demonstrated the wisdom of this 
measure to make necessary a discussion of the long-since refuted 
arguments by which its consummation was opposed. The era it 
ushered in was for the nation one of progress and prosperity 
unprecedented. 

Confetti. This is an Italian word signifying, literally, " con- 
fectionery," and as such entirely applicable to the small hard 
bonbons which were formerly exchanged as missiles during the 
Carnival. These bonbons are now, however, known as coriandoU, 
and the term confetti is applied to their cheaper and therefore 
more popular substitutes, — hard lime pellets of the size of a hail- 
stone and quite as hard, — which are carried around in a bag by 
maskers and thrown with a tin ladle. Originally the confetti 
were done up in paper, to mitigate the sting of their impact, but 
this mercy is seldom observed at present. The custom has passed 
over to Paris, and is especially practised at the fetes of Mi-Careme 
(Mid-Lent, q. v.) and Mardi-Gras (Shrove Tuesday, q. v.). But 
there only the paper and the name confetti are retained. The 
hard missiles have been eliminated. French confetti (the name 



268 CURIOSITIES OF 

is properly plural, like macaroni) are made out of thin paper of 
all colors, cut into pieces of the size of a leather tack head. 

Miss Constance Fenimore Woolson, in an article in Harper's 
Magazine, has given a pleasant description of the manner in 
which confetti-throwing is practised during the Eoman Car- 
nival : 

" In watching some of the more dexterous throwers about me," 
she says, " I was amused to see what a test of organization and 
temperament confetti-throwing could resolve itself into. Across 
the way was a young Eussian lady who in the fury of her at- 
tacks had warmed into the excitement of a Bacchante. There 
was an English girl next her, whose pure fresh face, timid but 
accurate shots, and calm sobriety of demeanor were as typical 
of her nationality as a Du Maurier drawing. On our own bal- 
con}'- there was such a spirit of jollity and vivacious enjoyment 
in the sport as make the American girl the ideal of a man's re- 
sponsiveness in fun. The crowd below, despite its canaille char 
acter, was now full of enchanting Italian gaj^ety. There were 
laughter and mirth, and quick return charges of confetti fire ; 
there were young French art students filling their bags with 
shot, and young German officers bringing Yon Moltke's tactics 
to bear on their tin-ladle throwing. Even Romans themselves, 
much as they may scorn Carnival sports, cannot resist this last 
riot of mimic fighting. Itahan officers, at least, are men before 
they are Eomans, too much men not to try their luck before the 
battery of discriminating eyes. For the hail of confetti is to be 
taken as something personal and complimentary. Its intensity 
is in proportion to the attraction of the object. A whitewashed 
coat and battered hat are to be looked upon as proofs of the 
sincerest flattery. 

" Few features of the fun are more amusing to watch than the 
flirtations that grow out of it. On the balcony on my right 
there was a young Italian whose admirable shooting announced 
hira an expert. His fire had been at first indiscriminate in 
its aim, hitting the Neapolitan model in the head as unerringly 
as he had pelted a pretty contadina in the nose. But soon his 
practised eye discovered a target worthy of his skill. Half bid- 
den behind the scarlet cuitains draping a box directly opposite 
was the figure of a beautiful young woman, whose nationality 
betrayed itself in the dusky glory of her dark eyes and the child- 
like naivete with which she abandoned herself to the enjoyment 
of the scene. She was quite unprotected. Her wire mask lay 
in her lap, her dipper beside it, and behind her huge feather fan 
she was laughing heartily at some of the nonsense before her. 
With the aim of true science my young neighbor covered the 
bt-auty with a shower hke hail. She, with the quickness of the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 269 

Italian temperament to take fire, dropped her fan, seized her 
dipper, and, seeing then what manner of man her antagonist 
was, loaded it to the full, and returned a shot as effective as his 
own. For the next half-hour the fight went on, the most serious 
damage resulting from the now equally active interchange of 
glances. There is nothing more characteristic of the Carnival 
season than these swiftly born mimic fights, beneath the artifice 
of which there as suddenty leaps into life the flashing fire of 
a flirtation." 

Compare the Roman custom with the more chic and gracious 
confetti-throwing of the French as described by a correspondent 
of the Louisville Courier-Journal writing from Paris under date 
of March 18, 1896. " Confetti," he says, " are thrown on you to 
make you beautiful, and before a fete is over you are very beau- 
tiful indeed, both inside and out, as confetti get down your back, 
and when you disrobe at night there is a shower of confetti, 
and, behold, the inside of your undershirt is like a flower-garden 
in the spring, and the bottoms of your shoes shine darkly with 
confetti, and you wonder whether you will have to go to a doc- 
tor to-morrow to have that piece of confetti taken out of your 
eye, and whether confetti are digestible, and try to swallow that 
papery dryness at the bottom of your throat. The French all 
delight to make strangers beautiful first. Every one has a hand- 
ful of confetti for the American, and so you warm with the 
pretty compliment, and a red eye and a dry throat are nothing, 
for you see the stars and stripes waving in a shower of confetti 
thrown by the French people. 

" Generally there are three days of confetti-throwing before 
Lent begins. This year more confetti were thrown than ever 
before. It was estimated by one of the daily papers that one 
million five hundred thousand pounds were sold the three days 
preceding Lent. The price of confetti varies. On the fashion- 
able boulevards where the rich walk, the price is from thirty to 
forty cents a pound. In the poorer quarters they sell for from 
fifteen to thirty cents a pound. The last day the price gener- 
ally goes up ten cents a pound everywhere. Striking an average 
of twenty cents a pound, three hundred thousand dollars was 
spent in three days to make people beautiful. 

" Confetti were introduced in Paris five years ago. They came 
out at a ball at the Moulin Rouge. A little cupful cost two sous, 
and none were thrown in the streets that year. The confetti 
were such a success that a great deal was manufactured the next 
year, and the price came down, and the poor could buy confetti 
and give the rich back handful for handful. Since then each 
year the streets have been covered with a deeper and deeper 
layer of confetti. Until this year it was the custom when the 



270 CURIOSITIES OF 

confetti were an inch deep in the streets to grab up handfuls and 
throw them. The authorities ordered this stopped, because dust 
was mixed with the confetti and dust will not make one beauti- 
ful. Mainly on account of this order, the confetti were much 
deeper this year than before. In the Boulevard des Italiens they 
were five inches deep the last night of the fetes. Walking was 
more fatiguing than in six inches of snow. 

" At Mi-Careme and Mardi-Gras there is a parade, and the 
people all come out to see it, and when it has passed right then 
begins the difference between France and the IJnited States. In 
America the whole show is over, and the people go home won- 
dering whether it was really worth waiting an hour after the 
advertised time to see. In France the parade is just an incident, 
and the real fun and confetti-throwing begin after the parade 
has gone by. Every one buys a sack of confetti and starts out 
looking for those whom they make beautiful. The men throw 
at the women, and the women at the men. A pretty woman is 
soon covered with confetti, a handsome man too. Many a battle 
takes place. A woman receives a handful of confetti in her face 
and looks and sees around her innocent-looking men, all with 
their hands down. She looks closer, and detects a smile under 
the black moustache of the young man in the gray overcoat. A 
second later that young man's face is full of confetti, and before 
he can defend himself another handful blinds him. The young 
woman thinks she has won, and passes on, but before she has 
taken four steps a hand from behind douses her face in confetti. 
She turns, and there is that young man in the gray overcoat, 
daring her to come on. She goes down into her sack of con- 
fetti, and tries to get hold of enough to bury that young man,- 
who, when struck, utters a cry as if his heart was pierced, and 
flies, and the young woman, flushed with success, pursues him. 
He turns suddenly and finds her unprepared and empties his 
whole sack of confetti in her face. Before she has recovered her 
breath he has bought another sack of confetti and emptied that 
on her, and unless she confesses herself beaten in a contest where 
it is most winning and womanly to be weakest, he may buy out 
the whole stock of the confetti market. 

" No one must get angry, for that is impolite, and impoliteness 
is shocking on a fete-day in Paris. Here is the reprimand which 
a young woman received who did not smile and say 'thank you' 
when a young man got the best of her. At first the young 
woman had the upper hand in the confetti-throwing, and it was 
great fun. However, the j'oung womun did not have overcoat- 
pockets, and her confetti soon gave out. But she did have an 
umbrella, and, rushing out of the dense cloud of confetti, she 
gave the young man a poke in the ribs. The crowd indignantly 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 271 

interfered at once, telling her that she was no proper young 
woman. The umbrella had dropped from her hands. A man 
picked it up, and, opening it and raising it above his head, said 
that an umbrella was to keep off the sun and rain. ' See,' he 
said, pointing to the end of the handle, ' this is not sharp, and 
cannot be used effectively as a sword,' and, bowing low, he re- 
turned the umbrella to her. Then the crowd told her to go 
home and to learn how to behave herself before she came out 
on another fete-day. 

"The shopkeepers have fun with one another. One loads up 
with confetti and rushes into his neighbor's store and rushes out 
again, leaving behind him a man in a cloud of confetti. Later 
the compliment is returned, and several such visits back and 
forth are made during the day. A party of men and women 
enter the cafe, and from their innocent bearing one would never 
suspect that they are on mischief bent. There is a signal, and 
with a'Yive la Eepublique' enthusiasm the men and women 
blow off confetti as if they were so much pent-up steam. The 
patron is surrounded, and becomes the middle of a pillar of con- 
fetti. Such visits explain why they say in Paris that you find 
confetti in your soup a month after a fete. The policemen are 
a favorite mark for confetti, and they must stand all day and 
receive gusts of confetti in their faces, followed b}" mischievous 
ripples of laughter from women, with never the pleasure of 
throwing a handful in return. The children have a great time 
with confetti. From the beginning to the end of a fete the chil- 
dren and the confetti are so mixed that when a mother wants 
her child she feels around in the confetti until her hand rests on 
a head. If the head is that of her own child and not that of her 
neighbor's child, she leads the young one home. Many houses 
in Paris have balconies. Those who live in the apartments come 
out on the balconies and have battles with a street-full of people 
for spectators, who have a cheer for the woman whenever she 
gives the man a blinding handful. Others who live in upper 
stories sift confetti on the crowds, with a sackful now and then 
for one that interests them." 

Consualia. An ancient Eoman festival, celebrated on Au- 
gust 21, in honor of the god Consus. This festival was sup- 
posed to be the precursor of the Ludi Circenses, and was cele- 
brated annually in the Circus by the symbolical ceremony of 
uncovering an altar .dedicated to the god, which was buried in 
the earth. Romulus was considered as the founder of the fes- 
tival, and was said to have discovered an altar upon the spot 
where this ceremony took place. The festival was associated 
with the tradition of the rape of the Sabine women, by which 



272 CURIOSITIES OF 

it was believed that the founders of Eome procured wives for 
themselves, by violence, from the neighboring Sabines. The 
Sabines, it was related, had come to Rome to see the spectacle ; 
and their hosts, in the midst of the games, seized upon the Sabine 
maidens and carried them to their homes. The tradition assumes 
the existence of the games at this early epoch. They were 
celebrated, under the direction of the Pontifices, with chariot- 
and horse-races ; and it was a holiday for animals as well as men, 
horses and asses being allowed to rest, and being adorned with 
garlands. Who this god Consus was, the ancients themselves did 
not know. He was generally identified with the equestrian 
Poseidon, or Neptune of the Greeks ; but there was nothing in 
his cult that reminds of Neptune. 

Contribution-Box in Churches. The contribution-box is 
an American invention, or, rather, a gradual evolution. In the 
early colonial days no contribution was taken up in the churches, 
but the support of the minister and his family depended upon 
the gifts of the people. Cord-wood and pumpkins, fresh pork 
and dried apples, were given in sufficient abundance to keep the 
preacher from season to season. But as the Church advanced 
a demand arose which could not be satisfied by these merely 
bucolic contributions. One could not, for instance, send mission- 
aries abroad on a capital of pork and potatoes. Then it was 
voted to " pass around the hat," but, as the colonial hat was not 
considered dignified enough for that purpose, one of the tithing- 
men conceived the idea of substituting the old-fashioned warm- 
ing-pan. With this the collector could stand at the door of the 
square, box-like pews and gather in all the shekels with ease, 
the coin as it dropped in the brass warming-pan gauging the 
generosity of the giver. It may have been some of the thriftier 
members of the congregation who decided that the warming pan 
was too noisy and clamored for an improvement. In answer to 
this appeal came the corn-popper, whose wire meshes served to 
deaden the noise. This was used until the rise of an artistic 
sense called for something more aesthetic as well as more con- 
venient in the handling. So at length was invented the modern 
contribution-box, the long handled square box with which the 
vigilant deacon can reach to the extreme end of the pew. These 
were not lined until the old complaint about the attendant noise 
caused them to be lined with some soft material, the Methodists 
and Baptists generally using flannel and the Presbyterians and 
Congregationalists preferring velvet. These boxes are still ex- 
tensively used throughout the country towns. As the offertory 
is usually accompanied by a selection from the choir, the accom- 
paniment of jingling coins adds greatly to the service. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 273 

Coopers' Dance. (Ger. Schdfflertanz.) A curious ceremony 
performed by the coopers of Munich, Bavaria, every seven years, 
during the last days of the Carnival, and ending on Shrove 
Tuesday. According to popular tradition, the custom originated 
in the year 1517, when Munich was ravaged by a terrible plague. 
Desolation and despair reigned. Fear took possession of the 
citizens, so that even when the plague began to abate they durst 
not open their w^indows or doors or leave their houses, fearing 
that the air and the water were tainted with the disease. Finally 
the master coopers and the master-butchers put their heads to- 
gether and decided to reassure their unfortunate fellow-citizens 
by public shows and amusements. So one day the whole town 
was startled by a procession marching to the sound of merry music. 
First came the coopers, dressed in bright red jackets and waving 
fresh green garlands in time with the music, while they called to 
the people to open their doors and windows and come out in 
the open air. Then followed the butchers, also dressed in bright 
costumes and mounted on their dray-horses. Curiosity and ex- 
citement overcame fear. The people rushed out and followed 
the procession to the market-place. There the coopers danced 
in a circle, whilst the butchers' apprentices leaped into the foun- 
tain to prove that the water was innocuous. Thus was public 
confidence once more restored. 

Since that period the coopers once every seven years dance 
their Schafllertanz in commemoration of the event, and once every 
three years the butchers' apprentices perform the Butchers' Leap. 

The last time the Coopers' Dance was performed was in 1893. 
A contributor to the Catholic World (December, 1896) who was 
an eye-witness gives an account here condensed. He was fortu- 
nate enough to obtain a place at a window of the palace of 
Prince Ludwig Ferdinand in the Wittelsbacherplatz. This was 
one of the palaces visited by the coopers. They perform before 
the royal palace for the prince regent, and before the houses of 
all the other princes in turn. They also dance opposite the 
Eathhaus, and the houses of the ministers and principal mag- 
nates of Munich. But they must keep in Munich ; outside the 
limits of the city they are not allowed to roam. They receive 
twenty-five dollars from each royal personage before whose 
palace they dance, and from ministers, etc., never less than fif- 
teen dollars. The festivities as witnessed from Prince Ludwig 
Ferdinand's windows in 1893 were but a repetition of what 
happened before the other houses. 

"The Schaflfler, about twenty young men, came marching up 
the platz, dressed in close fitting scarlet jackets trimmed with 
silver lace, black velvet knee-breeches, white stockings, and 
buckled shoes ; they had httle, short leather aprons, one corner 

18 



274 CURIOSITIES OF 

tucked back, tied round the waist with a broad crimson silk 
sash, the gold-fringed ends of which hung down at one side. On 
their heads they wore green velvet turned-up caps, adorned with 
a tuft of blue and white feathers, and carried large half-arches 
of fresh box-trees in their hands. The musicians followed with 
fife and drum, and another scarlet- coated individual, who bore 
a black and yellow banner (the colors of Munich), with the 
coopers' arms — a beer-barrel, with hammer and nails — painted 
on it. At the end of the procession walked a harlequin (^Hans- 
wurst), clearing the way with a long pole, striped with blue and 
white, with a ball and cross at the top. 

" The musicians stood at one side, while the dancers arranged 
themselves in a circle in the centre of the platz, opposite the 
palace. The performance began by their all dancing round in a 
ring, each holding one end of his own and his neighbor's arch 
in his right hand, while his left was placed jauntily at his side. 
The harlequin stood with his pole in the centre of the ring, and 
the Schaffler wound in and out, out and in, in intricate mazes ; 
but little by little, out of the seemingly hopeless confusion, they 
formed with their green arches a huge royal crown of which 
the centre was the harlequin's cross and ball. The next figure 
was an arbor, then a monster beer-barrel round which the per- 
formers danced, while they tapped it with little hammers, keep- 
ing time with the music. Then followed a variety of figures, 
all ingeniously formed out of the verdant arches. 

"The figures finished, the harlequin brought forward a gay- 
looking little barrel, painted blue and white, and two hoops, 
also blue and white, with three holes in each, in which were 
placed three small glasses of wine. One of the Schaflier 
jumped lightly upon the barrel and began to swing about the 
hoops from one hand to the other, over his head and under 
his knees, in time with the music, without spilling a drop of 
the wine. He then took out one of the glasses, and, having 
handed the hoops to the harlequin, who emptied the others by 
throwing the contents on the ground, he drank ' Jjebe hoch F to 
Prince Ludwig Ferdinand. The swinging of hoops and drinking 
were continued until the health of the eight members of the 
royal family present had been drunk. After each toast the 
empty glass was tossed over the drinker s shoulder and caught 
behind by the harlequin in his cap. Then the dancers marched 
gayly away as they had come. The Schiifflertanz will be seen 
no more in this century. When its seven years come round again 
it will be 1900." 

Copacabana, Nuestra Senora de. (Sp., "Our Lady of 
Copacabana.") One of the most famous shrines in South Amer- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 275 

ica. The Bacred city (ciudad bendita) of Oopacabana is a large 
and rambling town on the peninsula of the same name in 
Bolivia. It lies within the neighborhood of the sacred islands 
of the ancient Incas, and was a holy spot long before the advent 
of Christianity. Its chief edifice is the splendid church contain- 
ing the miraculous image of Our Lady of Copacabana. This 
stands in the camarin, a large room behind the great altar, ad- 
mission to which among the natives must be prefaced by confes- 
sion and the payment of a small sum of money. The former 
condition is not exacted from heretical visitors. All round the 
walls are ranged votive offerings, from the diamond hilted sword 
and gold-mounted pistols of General Santa Cruz and the jewels 
of his wife, to little rude representations in silver of arms, 
legs, hearts, and eyes, deposited here by grateful Indians and 
whites as emblematic tokens of the cures wrought by Nuestra 
Senora. 

She herself stands in an alcove, behind a heavy curtain of 
embroidered velvet, and shut off from too close approach by a 
stout silver railing. At stated times the curtain is rolled back 
and she stands revealed to sight. She is a wooden image 
scarce three feet high, elaborately dressed in gay satins and 
loaded with gold and jewels. Her head is a mere mite in com- 
parison with the blazing crown which it supports. The legend 
runs that the image was carved in 1582 by Tito Yupanqui, a 
Hneal descendant of the ruling Incas, who had no previous in- 
struction in art, but who was inspired by the Virgin. Our Lady 
even favored him with a special sitting, so that the portrait is 
celestially guaranteed to be accurate. 

Little wooden crosses are hung around the neck of Nuestra 
Senora, and, having thus become imbued with special virtues, 
are distributed to pilgrims. As many as thirty thousand devo- 
tees have been known to visit the shrine in a single season, 
coming from all parts of Catholic America, and even occasionally 
from Spain or Portugal. 

Copacabana — the word in ancient Peruvian means a precious 
stone that gives vision — derives its name more immediately 
from an idol carved of blue stone which lent sanctity and fame 
to the spot in the days of the Incas. This idol was buried by 
the Indians after the arrival of the Spaniards, but was subse- 
quently disinterred by the latter and broken in pieces. The 
temples of which the early writers speak have disappeared and 
left only few and unsatisfactory traces. Yet in the suburbs of 
the town near the cemetery are found a number of niches, 
steps, and what appear to be seats, cut in the rocks, which 
may have had some connection with the ancient worship. 

The Catholics have raised a number of subsidiary shrines 



276 CURIOSITIES OF 

along the approaches to Copacabaria, in which pilgrims through 
prayer and penance prepare themselves to encounter the greater 
sanctities that await them in the sacred village. 

Corn-Dance. An ancient festival among the Indians of 
North America, which is still kept up, especially among the 
Senecas of New York, It is held at the coming of the harvest 
season (about the end of August) as a sort of thanksgiving to 
the Great Spirit for the return of the crops. The date of the 
festival is usually announced by a carrier, fantastically dressed, 
with painted face and bespattered hair, who rides from house 
to house all over the reservation. At the appointed time the 
entire tribe gather at their council-house, where the materials 
of the feast have been prepared. The braves sit at one end of 
the hall, the squaws at the other. The ceremonies open with 
speeches delivered by the elders. Then follows a banquet. 
Huge caldrons filled with choice Indian delicacies — dog meat, 
cabbage, succotash, etc, — are placed on the floor. Behind the 
kettles stand officers of the nation. As each member of the 
assembly comes up, carrying a tin pail or a wooden dish, he or 
she is helped to a portion from each of the kettles. Then all 
retire to the shade of near-by trees and bushes to dispose of 
the eatables. When sated, they fall back in a sleep which lasts 
nearly all the afternoon. As evening approaches, the feasters 
again gather in the council-house for the dance. The musicians 
are seated on benches in the centre of the room. The instru- 
ments are horns or shells filled with shot, and drums made by 
stretching a hide over a hoop. The drums produce a dull 
booming sound, and the horns give out a sharper rattling noise. 
The dance is led by an elder of the tribe, and is a sort of exag- 
gerated cake-walk, except that grotesqueness rather than grace 
seems to be aimed at in the movements. All the men and 
women form in a circle about the players and follow exactly with 
limbs and body the movements of the leader. At first the circle 
moves very slowly in a sedate and stately march, but as the 
musicians get warmed up to their work they rise from their 
seats and sway their own bodies in unison with those of the 
dancers. The time becomes faster and faster. The leader be- 
gins to execute grotesque figures, throwing out his arms and legs 
and at every few steps emitting a yell, and all the time is faith- 
lully imitated by his followers. The movement of the circle 
becomes more and more rapid until the whole line is whirling at 
a dizzy speed. Often men and women sink exhausted, but the 
line continues until the leader gives the signal to stop. After a 
short rest another number follows, and the dance is continued 
until late at night. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 277 

Corn-Shucking or Husking-Bee. The harvesting or " husk- 
ing" of corn which occurs in late October or early November is 
one of the most popular festivals in rural America from Maine 
to Florida. The stalks are cut in full fruit and stacked in the 
fields to mature, after which they are carried into a large barn, 
where all the lads and lasses of the neighborhood are already 
assembled ; here they strip the ears from the parent stem, and, 
removing the outer sheaths, cast them into open bins, to be 
further selected and " shucked" before they are finally garnered. 
Several days are occupied in this way, and many are the jests 
and merry the laughter while dexterous fingers tear apart the 
sheaths and bright eyes look expectantly at each concealed ear 
as it comes to light; for he or she who first finds a red ear of 
corn is made king or queen of the revels that follow. When all 
the ears are stripped and lie heaped together in open bins, and 
the red ear has been proclaimed, a procession is formed, headed 
by the farmer and his wife, who walk in triumph followed by all 
their hands, leading the victorious maid carrying her patent of 
royalty — the red ear — in her hand, from the " huskins" barn to 
another large granary which has been effectively decorated with 
green boughs and corn-ears. At one end stands the throne, and 
the rough plank floor has been plentifully strewn with sawdust. 
Here the ceremony of crowning takes place, and the subsequent 
enthronement. The throne is usually some treasured old chair, 
high-backed, and so tall in the seat as to be approached only by 
a companion footstool or " cricket," carved very resplendently 
about the legs. 

A corn dinner may follow. On each guest's plate lies a small 
napkin, spread cornerwise, and beside it are tiny cruets of salt 
and pepper, and a small plate holding a roll of fresh butter. 
Ears of corn, white and smoking hot, are served up. Then come 
corn fritters, succotash, roasted corn, corn cooked in cream, 
hunks of corn bread, and heaping plates of corn cakes. Toasts 
are given and drunk in cider, or light wines, or punch, or may- 
hap champagne. Then follow dances and other revels, and the 
party is at an end. 

Such are the corn-shuckings of the present. But in the old 
slavery days there was an added element of picturesqueness in 
the festival as practised in the Southern States. An excellent 
reminiscent interview on these ante-bellum glories held with an 
ex-slaveholder by a JVew York Sun rejDorter appeared in that 
paper for November 11, 1895, whence the following paragraphs 
are quoted : 

" My father owned about three hundred negroes, and as I was 
the oldest boy of course I was known on the plantation as 
' young marster.' The event of the year down in the negro ' quar- 



278 CURIOSITIES OF 

ters' was the corn-shuckin', and when corn-shuckin' time came 
they were permitted to invite their friends on the neighboring 
plantations, and would go miles and miles to attend one of these 
frolics. The season is just at hand for them now. Yes, boys, 
it's corn-shuckin' time in Dixie, and I wish I was there. I can 
see the woods, all crimson and brown and gold, and the blue 
haze of Indian summer over it all, and I can hear the birds as 
they stop over on their way to the far South. 

" As soon as a corn-shuckin' was talked about, all the darkies 
would begin to sing, — 

*' Ha, ha, ha, you and me. 
Little brown jug, don't I love thee ! 

They all knew that the little brown jug would be on hand. 
When the night of the shuckin' arrived, the darkies poured in 
from every direction. They travelled paths in those days and 
took near cuts, and they had signals by which to let each other 
know that they were on the way. Most plantations had a 
bugler who owned an old wooden bugle five or six feet long. 
These bugles were made generall}' of poplar wood coated with 
tar and kept under water for several days. Soaking it kept the 
instrument from shrinking, and gave it a resonant sound which 
could be heard for miles on a clear night. The bugles were car- 
ried to the corn-shuckin's, and the coming darkies would blow 
and blow, and be answered by the bugler at the corn-pile, and 
as he did so he would say, ' Dar's the niggers comin' from Byers's 
plantation,' ' Dar dey is from Elliott's.' As they drew nearer to 
the pile of corn the bugle-blowers would stop and give wa}^ to 
quill- or reed-blowers. A set of from three to seven reeds of dif- 
ferent sizes and lengths were always on hand, and those darkies 
could play any tune they'd ever heard on 'em by shifting 'em 
across their lips. The roads and paths would resound with the 
weird music of the quill-blowers as they came in from many 
directions. They used these instruments, too, in going to their 
wives' houses at night. You know, fellows, the darkies had right 
smart intuitive sense about some things. They preferred to have 
a w^ife on some other man's plantation than their marster's, and 
would only visit her on Wednesday and Saturday nights. You 
could hear them going and coming, blowing their quills for all 
they were worth. 

" The corn was divided into two piles as big as a house, and 
two captains were appointed. Each chose sides, just us the cap- 
tains in spellin'-matches do, and then the fun began. There was 
always whiskey enough to please 'em, and not enough for any 
drunkenness. A man was entitled to trample the jug every time 
he found a red ear of corn, and also to kiss any dusky damsel 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 279 

that he fancied. It was astonishing how many red ears some 
of 'em managed to find, and very funny to see how anxious the 
young wenches were for the red ears to come to light. The 
young marster was always on hand to see that the drams were 
given out judiciously, and to see that all got a taste. The side 
which shucked out their pile first got the prize, and it was usu- 
ally plug tobacco. While the shuekin' was going on the darkies 
would sing, talk, and dance. A leader would mount on top of 
one pile of corn and call, and all would join in the chorus. The 
leader at every corn-shuckin' I ever attended began, ' I will start 
the holler,' and the crowd yelled the response, ' Bugleloo !' 

" I will start the holler ! 

Bugieloo ! 
I will start the holler I 

Bugleloo ! 
Oh, doan' yer hear my holler? 

Bugleloo ! 
Massa's got er bugler, 

Bug-leloo ! 
A ten-cent bugle, 

Bugleloo ! 

" There were about fifty stanzas to this song, or else the leader 
improvised as he went on, and he would call until the crowd 
grew thoroughly sick and wanted a change. They brought him 
down by throwing ears of corn at him. Sometimes a fellow 
that was very much stuck on his voice would mount to call, and 
it took devilish rough treatment to get him down. Then another 
caller would take the lead. He would probably ' hist' a religious 
tune, such as — 

" Lord, I can't stay away. 

Lord, I can't stay away ; 

Lord, I can't stay away. 

And the crowd, with groanings and moanings, would half sing, 
half chant, — 

" Oh, I mus' come to jedgment to stan' my trial : 
Oh, I mus' come to jedgment to stan' my trial ! 
I can't stay away. 

The leader again called, — 

" Lord, I can't stay away ; 

Lord, I can't stay away. 
Oh, my God, gwine ter rain down brimstone an' fire, 

1 can't stay away. 
Gwine ter walk on dat glass all mingled wid fire, 

I can't stay away ; 

Lord, 1 can't stay away ; 

Lord, I can't stay away ; 



280 CURIOSITIES OF 

I'm gwine ter jine dat heav'nly choir, 

I can't stay awa3^ 
John saj's he seed forty an' fo' thousan' ; 

I can't stay away. 
Jesus is comin' wid forty an' fo' thousan' ; 

I can't stay away. 

" At the end of each vei'se the crowd would join in with the 
chorus, swaying their bodies and nodding their heads in time to 
the music. Their dreadful earnestness in singing of the judg- 
ment and brimstone could only arise from a profound belief in 
such things. Many of the girls and women would clear aw^ay a 
space and pat and dance. The night would wear on, and as the 
pile of unshucked corn grew smaller and smaller the spirits of 
the darkies would rise. They hate work, even when mixed with 
fun, and as the corn-pile disappeared the crowd would yell, — 

" Lookin' fur de las' year, 

Bang-a-ma-lango ! 
Lookin' fur de las' year, 

Bang-a-ma-lango ! 
Eoun' up de co'n, boys, 

Bang-a-ma-lango ! 
Eoun' up de co'n, boys, 

Bang-a-ma-lango ! 

"They always say 'year' for ear, and as the last one was 
shucked there was a mighty rush and scramble. Three or 
four strapping bucks would lift the young marster to their 
shoulders and the crowd would fall in line behind. Then they 
would march three times around the ' big house,' as the marster's 
house was always called, singing as they marched, coming to a 
halt at the tables under the trees, where they were sure of find- 
ing a feast of good things. A beef and a mutton were always 
killed for a corn-shuckin' supper, and then there was an abun- 
dance of bacon and cabbage, sweet and Irish potatoes, stewed 
pumpkin, fruit pies, and pecks and pecks of ginger-cakes and 
biscuits, and gallons of molasses. Darkies 'jes' naterally love 
coffee,' as they say themselves, and every one bad as much as he 
or she wanted in corn-shuckin' time. It was served in bowls. 
They would eat awhile and then rest and eat again. And while 
they were resting some would pat and sing, play the jewsharp 
or quills, while others pulled ears and danced. Others would 
wrestle and box, and the old men and women would settle them- 
selves about the numerous fat-pine bonfires and talk about ' ole 
marse and ole missy an' young marster,' or sing the old negro 
melodies that they love so well. Ah, they felt as grand and as 
free as they've ever felt since, boys, and such music as they made ! 
There has never been anything like it since, and there never will 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 281 

be anything to take its place. The old slaves are dying with the 
old Confeds that fought to keep them. Already ' ole marster an' 
ole missy' and Mammy Liza and Daddy Hannibal have passed 
away, and it is almost time for young marster and the young 
darkies to go, too. I want to go back, boys. I want to go back 
to one more corn-shuckin' in the cotton-growin' section ; all made 
up of darkies. I don't want to go to one where the crowd is 
mixed, part black and part white. Do you know, I'd hke to 
feel that I was the young marster once more. You can have all 
the tickets to hear Melba, Nordica, and Eames, and the De 
Eezskes and Paderewski, if you'll just let me hear the blowin' 
of the bugles and quills and the old corn-shuckin' songs; but 
what's the matter with us all taking a pull at the little brown jug 
before we go back to work ?" 

Coronation Stone. A rough block of stone preserved in 
Westminster Abbey, inside an oaken chair, known as the Coro- 
nation Chair, chair and stone alike being looked upon with sin- 
gular veneration by the English people. It is in this chair that 
every English sovereign, from Edward I. to Queen Victoria, has 
been inaugurated. Only once has it been moved out of the 
Abbey. When Cromwell was installed as Lord Protector in 
Westminster Hall, he was placed in the chair, which had been 
transferred there for the purpose. The early history of the Coro- 
nation Stone is involved in obscurity. It is certain that it was 
brought from Scone, in Scotland, to Westminster by Edward I., 
who built for it the chair that still contains it. It is also certain 
that Scone, as fur back as the tenth century, was the place where 
the Scottish kings were inaugurated by being placed in " the 
royal chair of stone," and it is very likely, therefore, that this 
shapeless block was a portion of the chair and was brought over 
by Edward as a trophy of victory. Further than this authentic 
history says nothing. But, dating from about the fourteenth 
century, strange legends began to cluster around the stone, and 
were gradually wrought into a consistent narrative. English 
chroniclers gravely asserted that it was the pillow upon which 
Jacob slept at Bethel, and which his descendants had carried 
to Egypt. A Scottish fable stepped in to afford an explana- 
tion how it had been translated to JSTorthern latitudes. It seems 
that a Greek, named Gathelus, had married Scota, a daughter 
of Pharaoh, and after the destruction of the Egyptians in the 
Red Sea had fled with her and the remnant who had escaped 
drowning along the north coast of Africa, and, crossing the 
Straits of Gibraltar, had founded a kingdom at Brigantium, 
now Compostella. His royal seat, and that of his successors, 
was a stone, fashioned like a chair and known as the " Stone of 



282 CURIOSITIES OF 

Destiny," which, wherever it was found, promised sovereignty 
to the Scots, the descendants of the eponyraic Scota. Just here 
Scotch and English traditions were neatly welded together by 
identifying the Stone of Destiny with Jacob's pillow and sup- 
posing that it had been brought by Grathelus from Egyj)t. Simon 
Breck, a descendant from Gathelus, carried the chair with him 
from Spain to Ireland, and was crowned in it as king of that 
country. After having been used for the coronation of a long 
series of Irish kings, it was transferred to Scotland by Fergus, 
the Irish king who subdued that country, and remained there 
till it fell into the hands of the EngUsh Edward. 

N'ow, it happens that the Irish, too, had their Coronation 
Stone, their Stone of Destiny, the Lia Fail of Tara, which also 
had a legendary history connecting it with the East. Nothing 
could be more flattering to their national pride than to imagine 
that the English Coronation Stone was in effect their own Lia 
Fail, and that the long line of English monarchs who have been 
inaugurated upon it were mere upstarts, mere creatures of yes- 
terday, in comparison with the illustrious .dynasty of ancient 
Irish kings who took their seat upon the same stone in the heroic 
ages. By the dropping of inconvenient details the Irish legend, 
therefore, was merged into the Scotch, and it was held to be the 
Lia Fail that Fergus had taken over to Scotland, in spite of the 
fact that the Lia Fail was never removed from Tara, but remains 
there to this day. It may be mentioned, further, that the Coro- 
nation Stone has been examined by geologists, who agree in de- 
scribing it as a block of old red sandstone, similar in all respects 
to the sandstone found in the neighborhood of Scone, and that 
it is quite impossible it should have come from the rocky forma- 
tions of either Tara, Bethel, or Egypt. The whole matter is 
thus summed up by Mr. Skene, in the concluding paragraph of 
his essay on the Coronation Stone : 

" It was the custom of Celtic tribes to inaugurate their kings 
on a sacred stone, supposed to symbolize the monarchy. The 
Irish kings were inaugurated on the Lia Fail, which never was 
anywhere but at Tara, the ' sedes principalis' of Ireland ; and 
the kings in Scotland, first of the Pictish monarchy and after- 
wards of the Scottish kingdom which succeeded it, were inaugu- 
rated on this stone, which never was anywhere but at Scone, 
the ^ sedes principalis' both of the Pictish and Scottish king- 
doms." 

When a sovereign is to be crowned the coronation chair is 
carried around the screen and placed in the sacrarium before the 
altar. A robe of cloth of gold and ermine is thrown over it. 
A companion chair as nearly like it as possible was provided 
when at the coronation of William and Mary it was necessary 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 283 

that two thrones of equal importance be employed. Although 
the chairs are of nearly the same size, the seat of the newer one 
is quite four inches higher than the old. For William was a 
short man and Mary a tall woman ; hence the seat of the 
chair in which he was to sit had to be made high enough to 
bring his head on a level with that of the queen. 

Cut boldly in the solid oak seat, in scrawling letters such as 
a school-boy might make with his knife, is the legend " P. Abbott 
slept in this chair Jan. 4, 1801." P. Abbott, in fact, w^as a West- 
minster School boy, and a tradition, which there is every reason 
to believe is true, tells that he made a wager with a school-mate 
that he dare stay in the Abbey all night, alone. In order to 
win his wager he hid in some corner of the old building until 
the doors were locked for the night, and thus was left alone 
there. Fearing, however, that when morning came the boy 
with whom he had made the bet would disbelieve his statement 
that he had won it, he determined to leave some proof of the 
fact, and so spent the hours of the early morning in carving on 
the coronation chair the sentence which even now, nearly a cen- 
tury after, bears witness for him. 

Corpus Christi. (Lat., " Body of Christ." Known also in 
France as Fete-Dieu, and in Germany as the Frohnleichnamsfest.) 
One of the greatest festivals of the Catholic Church, held on 
the Thursday after Whitsunday in memory of the institution 
of the eucharist and in honor of the doctrine of transubstantia- 
tion. Logically it should have been celebrated on Holy or 
Maundy Thursday, the anniversary of the Lord's Supper. But 
the Church at that season is occupied with the consideration of 
the mournful aspects of the Passion, and a joyous festival would 
have jarred upon the tone of mind so produced. The doctrine of 
transubstantiation was formally adopted at the Lateran Council 
in 1215. It was immediately felt that it should be made the 
occasion of a great holy-day. None felt this need more acutely 
than a certain religious of Liege named Juliana. No wonder, 
therefore, that a vision should have appeared to her. She saw 
the moon fully illuminated, with the exception of one dark spot, 
and was told that this dark spot referred to the lack in the 
Church of a festival in honor of the Transubstantiation. When 
in 1230 she became prioress of her order she urged upon the 
local ecclesiastical authorities the appointment of such a festival. 
In 1246 Eobert, Bishop of Liege, acceded to her wishes, and 
the Thursday after Whitsunday became known through his 
diocese as Corpus Christi Day. An office for the day was com- 
piled by Juliana. For almost a score of years the feast remained 
a local one. In 1261 a former archdeacon of Liege became Pope, 



284 CURIOSITIES OF 

under the name of Urban lY. Juliana was then dead, but a 
holy woman named Eve, who had been in her confidence and 
who knew of the friendship that had existed between Juliana 
and the new Pope, induced Henry, then bishop of Liege, to 
petition Urban IV. for the celebration of the feast throughout 
the Church. The Pope had not quite made up his mind, when a 
miracle that occurred in Bolsena in 1264 precipitated his assent. 
A priest celebrating mass spilt a drop of the communion wine 
after consecration. He strove to conceal the accident by cover- 
ing the place on which it fell with the corporal. Suddenly the 
corporal was covered with red spots in the shape of a host. 
The corporal is still preserved at the neighboring town of Or- 
vieto, where the Pope was then temporarily holding his court. 
Another account (embalmed in a famous picture b}^ Eaphael in 
the Vatican) makes a drop of blood appear upon the consecrated 
host to convince the doubting priest of the truth of the doctrine 
of transubstantiation. Both accounts, however, agree that the 
miracle led the Pope to delay the institution of the feast no 
longer. He therefore published a bull commanding its celebra- 
tion throughout the Church. But as he died shortl}- afterwards 
it is possible that the bull was never published (no mention of 
Corpus Christi being found in Durandus, who lived twenty-two 
years after Urban), although it is pretty well established that 
Urban himself and the Eoman Court celebrated the festival. 
The office which is still used was composed by St. Thomas Aqui- 
nas at the bidding of Urban IV. Clement V. in the Council of 
Vienne confirmed Urban's constitution, and succeeding Popes 
promoted the devotion to Corpus Christi by grants of indul- 
gences ranging from forty to one hundred days. 

The carrying of the Blessed Sacrament in procession on this 
festival has been almost from the first a recognized part of the 
ceremonial, if it was not, as some Catholic authorities believe, 
actually appointed by Urban IV. But it is borrowed from a 
still older procession of the same sort which had been instituted 
by Louis VIII. in 1226 on the feast of the Exaltation of the 
Cross (g. V.) in the city of Avignon, and which to this day is 
celebrated by the Cray Penitents of that city. 

In media3val times the Corpus Christi procession was celebrated 
throughout Christendom with much picturesque detail. Nao- 
georgus in his " Popish Kingdom" has left us a vivid description 
of the ceremonial as practised in Germany. First came a priest 
attired as St. John the Baptist, pointing backward to another 
who bore the silver pyx wherein was enshrined the eucharist. 
The arms of this second ecclesiastic were upheld by two of the 
wealthiest and most influential of the citizens, while four others 
bore a silken canopj^ over the pyx, — 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 285 

least that some filthie thing 
Should fall from hie, or some mad birde her doung thereon should fling. 

Two angels walking beside the canopy cast flowers upon the 
pyx. Then followed St. Ursula and St. George. A float repre- 
senting bell came next, 

wherein there doth appere 
A wondrous sort of damned sprites, with foule and fearful looke. 

Then came St. Christopher bearing the infant Christ upon his 
shoulders, St. Sebastian transfixed with numerous arrows, St. 
Catherine with her wheel, and St. Barbara with her " singing 
cake." 

And sundry other pageants played, in worship of this bread. 

That please the foolish people well : what should I stand upon 

Their banners, crosses, candlesticks, and reliques many on, 

Their cups and carved images, that priestes with countenance hie, 

Or rude and common people beare about full solemnie ? 

The common ways with boughes are strawde and every street beside 

And to the walls and windowes all are boughes and branches tied. 

The monkes in every place do roame, the nonnes abrode are sent. 

The priestes and schoolmen lowd do rore, some use the instrument. 

The straunger passing through the streete, upon his knees doe fall : 

And earnestly upon this bread, as on his God, doth call. 

For why, they count it for their Lorde, and that he doth not take 

The form of flesh, but nature now of breade that we do bake. 

A number great of armed men here all this while doe stande. 

To looke that no disorder be, nor any filching hande : 

For all the church goodes out are brought, which certainly would bee 

A bootie good, if every man might have his libertie. 

The Blessed Sacrament was exposed in the churches for eight 
days, a custom still kept up. In the interim the St. John of the 
procession, carrying the consecrated host in a bag slung around 
his neck and accompanied by the peasantry bearing crosses and 
banners, passed from field to field, reading texts from the gospel 
in each, all which was held to protect the cr<tp from storm and 
blight. 

In old Catholic England the Corpus Christi processions were 
largely participated in by the various guilds of each city. York 
was especially celebrated for the splendor of these shows. Har- 
grove in his " History of York," 1818, vol. ii. p. 494, tells us that 
they consisted of a solemn procession, in remembrance of the 
Sacrament of the Body of Christ, the symbolic representation 
being borne in a shrine. Every trade in the city was obliged to 
furnish a pageant at its own expense, and join the procession, 
and each individual had to personify some particular passage in 
the Old or New Testament, and to repeat some poetry on the 



286 CURIOSITIES OF 

occasion. The whole was preceded by a great number of lighted 
torches, and a multitude of priests in their proper habits ; after 
which followed the mayor and citizens, surrounded by an im- 
mense concourse of spectators. Commencing at the great gate 
of the priory of the Holy Trinity, they proceeded to the cathe- 
dral church and thence to St. Leonard's Hospital, where they 
left the sacrament. There are several public orders yet remain- 
ing in the old register of the city relative to the regulation of 
this ceremony ; and indulgences were granted from the Pope 
to those who contributed to the relief of the fraternity, or who 
observed the annual ceremony in the most devout manner, par- 
ticularly if they personall}^ attended from the country. Jn 
York the custom was not abolished until 1584. 

Corpus Christi Day was formerly celebrated at Dublin with 
high veneration. In the Chain-book of the City of Dublin are 
several entries to that purpose. We are told that there was a 
grand procession, in which the glovers were to represent Adam 
and Eve, with an angel bearing a sword before them. " The 
corrisees (perhaps curriers) were to represent Cain and Abel, 
with an altar and their offering. Mariners and vintners, Noah 
and the persons in his Ark, apparelled in the habit of carpenters 
and salmon-takers. The weavers personated Abraham and 
Isaac, with their offering and altar. The smiths represented 
Pharaoh with his host. The skinners, the camell with the chil- 
dren of Israel, etc." (See Harris, "History of Dublin." 1766, p. 
147.) 

In the "Eoyal Entertainment of the Earle of Nottingham, 
sent Ambassador from his Majestic to the King of Spaine," 1605, 
p. 12, it is stated that on Corpus Christi Day, " the greatest daj^ 
of account in Spaine in all the yeare," at Yalladolid, where the 
court was, " the king went a procession with all the apostles very 
richly, and eight giants, foure men and foure women, and the 
cheefe was named Gog-magog." 

It was usual in earlier times to conclude the day with Mystery 
Plays, in w^hich th^ chief characters of the procession made their 
appearance. The Cotton MS., Yesp. D. viii., contains a collection 
of dramas in old English verse (of the fifteenth century) re- 
lating principally to the history of the New Testament. Sir 
William Dugdale mentions this manuscript under the name of 
"Ludus Corporis Christi," or "Ludus Coventrise," and adds, "I 
have been told by some people, who in their younger years were 
eye-witnesses of these pageants so acted, that the 3'early con- 
fluence of people to see that shew was extraordinary great, and 
yielded no small advantage to this city." (See "Antiquities of 
Warwickshire," p. 116.) It appears by the latter end of the pro- 
logue that these plays or interludes were played not only in 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 287 

Coventry, but in other towns and places upon occasion. This 
MS. was edited by Mr. Halliwell in 1841 for the Shakespeare 
Society. The elder Heywood thus alludes to the devil as a 
character in these mysteries : 

For as good happe wolde have it chaunce, 
Thys devyll and I were of olde acqueyntaunce ; 
For oft in the play of Corpus Christi 
He hath played the devyll at Coventry. 

In most Catholic countries the Corpus Christi processions 
still parade through the streets, though without the attendant 
mummers of the old days. The pyx is carried by an ecclesiastic 
under a canopy, as of yore, and is followed by the citizens 
bearing candles. Apjn'opriate hymns and psalms are sung, 
among them the " Pange lingua gloriosi Corporis mysterium," 
known in " Hymns Ancient and Modern" as " Now my tongue, 
the mystery telling," But in Protestant countries the Catholics 
confine their processions to the church itself, or at the most it 
debouches from the front door, and, passing through the church- 
yard, re-enters by the door of the sacristy. 

In the gala times of the Papacy the Corpus Christi procession 
around the colonnade of St. Peter's Square was one of the most 
gorgeous functions of the year ; and it still retains a semblance 
of its former glory. 

In Spain especially and in the colonies founded by Spain it is 
the greatest ecclesiastical holiday of the year. Work is abso- 
lutely suspended, and the entire population dons its holiday 
garb. In the cities the host is carried in solemn procession 
through the principal streets, attended by the highest local 
magnates (even royalty itself, as in Madrid), civic and military 
officials in fresh bright uniforms, and a vast array of ecclesiastics 
in gorgeous stoles and chasubles. A vanguard of silver bell 
ringers announces the coming of the host. "As the superb 
structure of filigree gold goes by, a movement of reverent wor- 
ship vibrates through the crowd. Forgetful of silks and broad- 
cloth and gossip, they fall on their knees in one party-colored 
mass, and bowing their heads and beating their breasts they 
mutter their mechanical prayers." (John IIay: Castilian 
Days.) 

A unique Corpus Christi ceremonial, performed at the cathe- 
dral of Seville, is known as the dances of the sixes (las danzas 
de los seises). An eye-witness thus describes it in the Rosary 
Magazine for July, 1897 : 

" We reached the cathedral at an early hour in the evening. 
There were other visitors, like ourselves, anxious for an advan- 
tageous point from which to observe the dance. We secured 



288 CURIOSITIES OF 

positions very near the railing of the chapel. Quite a time had 
elapsed when the clerics and canons, followed by the cardinal- 
archbishop, filed into the sanctuary. The canons seated them- 
selves, some to the right, others to the left of the altar, and the 
cardinal-archbishop occupied what appeared to be a desk, rather 
than a throne. Very soon the organ back of the altar was in- 
toned, and the singers, all men, stationed themselves in an adjoin- 
ing alcove. Twelve boys (whence the Spaniards say, ' Z/as dan- 
zas de los seises,' dances of the sixes), — choir-boys, — equal in size 
and apparently in age, placed themselves in two groups of six 
each in the space left them in the sanctuary immediately in front 
of the Blessed Sacrament, which was exposed. These boys were 
dressed as royal pages, and their rich apparel suggested the idea 
that they were sons of nobles. In their hats were long feathers, 
which waved gracefully as they made their obeisance before the 
Blessed Sacrament. They sang a strophe so harmoniously that 
it excited devotion throughout the immense gathering, where all 
was quiet and recollected. The refrain was accompanied by 
the organ, and the boys danced to its melody with wonderful 
grace, beating time with castanets, to which their movements 
responded so perfectly that music, dance, and song produced 
complete harmony. As they moved backward and forward, 
they apparently mingled in confusion, yet there was an ele- 
gance and a regularity in their motions which proved the art 
and beauty of movement and manifested the fact that dance 
is to the Spaniard what music is to the Italian, — a national 
trait. 

" Suddenly the boys stood again in line, but now facing each 
other, six on each side. Several times they resumed this posi- 
tion, singing each time a strophe, and dancing to the music of 
the chorus." 

The custom comes down from immemorial times, and, though 
the Spanish authorities have frequently protested against it, 
Eome has allowed it to continue. 

Vienna runs a close second with Madrid in its celebration of 
the Corpus Christi processions. Every shop and place of busi- 
ness is closed. The Emperor of Austria in person takes his 
place in a procession, faUing into the ranks behind the clergy, 
followed by the court, the ministers, the municipal authorities, 
and the trade guilds. There are waving plumes, caparisoned 
horses, with all the noble Hungarian body-guard glittering in 
their mediaeval trappings. There are benedictions and genu- 
flections at the successive stations; and as the crosses and the 
sacred symbols are held on high, the people drop devoutly on 
their knees in the mud or the dust. 

A pretty custom at Aix in Savoy is described by a contributor 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 289 

to All the Year Bound for August 31, 1878. The Fete-Dieu pro- 
cession there consisted mainly of little children, — " atoms of two 
and three years old, just able to creep, in robes of ghstening gold, 
each carrying a golden flower, or a wheat-ear, a star, or a palm. 
Some tiny children, with careful mothers, added a parasol for 
the sun. The parasols marred the effect of the rich robes and 
glossy childish curls, so well combed out and frizzed down the 
little backs, and the flower garlands placed on the innocent little 
heads. 

" What is so delightful about the golden children is that there 
are so many of them. The gravity and indifference with which 
they step out is surprising. Were these little children fresh from 
the courts of heaven ? and was this Fete-Dieu but an echo of 
the pageants at which they had so lately figured in paradise ? 
Who can tell ? 

" Seeing these miraculously steady golden babies so adapted to 
their work, I was by no means amazed to behold a fat fair child, 
— three years old, perhaps, — of a most comfortable aspect, file by 
alone, its flaxen curls set with a crown of big spiked thorns, its 
innocent, chubby little face bespattered with daubs of red paint, 
a dark-colored cross lying on one shoulder. ISTor was I amazed, 
either, to see this little personage followed by another infant, 
stripped to its waist, wearing a strip of white curly lamb-skin 
over one little shining shoulder, leaving the other bare. A pil- 
grim's flask dangled on its lamb-skin skirt, and a toy lamb, on 
red wooden rollers, was tucked under one tiny arm. ^ot at all 
surprised was 1, 1 assure you, nor was the child. St. John had 
a miraculous gift of gravity, and a swing in his walk, quite 
delightful to behold, as emblematic of the desert. The easy con- 
tempt with which he treated that toy lamb on red rollers under 
his arm was perfect. St. John was a very pretty child, about 
four, and appeared as an old and practised hand repeating a 
well-known performance." 

Corpus Ohristi in mediaeval times was everywhere and nowa- 
days in all Latin countries is emphatically a Feast of Flowers. 
The Diocesan Synod of Worms, for example, held in 1610, 
among other decrees relating to the celebration of Corpus 
Christi, enacted that boys wearing wreaths on their heads should 
walk in the processions appointed for the day. And Serarius 
in his elaborate treatise is at great pains not only to lay down 
the rules for the due solemnization of the Corpus Christi pro- 
cessions in the diocese of Mayence, with clergy and laymen, 
girls and boys, all wearing wreaths and garlands composed of 
roses and various other flowers, and oak and ivy ; but he also 
defends the use of wreaths against the mockery of some and 
the condemnation of others who, far from considering it a fes- 

19 



290 CURIOSITIES OF 

tive and joyful rite giving glory and honor to God, — which he 
maintained it was, — cried it down on account of its long-stand- 
ing connection with the licentious and idolatrous usages of 
paganism ; and he naively concludes his lengthy argument with 
the somewhat utilitarian plea that "the wreaths serve another 
purpose than the honor and glory of God : they protect the head 
from the rays of the sun, which at the time is scorching hot ;" 
but even this, he exultingly adds, " may be referred to the end set 
forth above, for as all walked bareheaded in honor of Christ, so 
likewise for His glory they ought in a measure to consult the 
interests of their bodily health. Where is the harm ? Is it not 
rather a praiseworthy act thus to combine prudence with reli- 
gion and piety ?" The whole city of Mayence on this occasion, he 
says, was made one single temple ; the walls, the houses, every 
place available for decoration, was ornamented with flowers and 
foliage ; and all the roadways were strewed with them. Even 
the Emperor w^ore a floral crown at such times ; for we learn 
from Sarnelli's letters that Ferdinand the Second used to take 
part in the solemnity " sola florea redimitus corolla." 

The same practice was, moreover, general in France and Italy. 
Indeed, wherever the festival of Corpus Christ! was kept flowers 
were in great request. In the Eoman Eitual edited by Catalani 
at the command of Benedict XIY. it is strictly enjoined that 
each of the laymen bearing the baldacchino on Corpus Christ! 
Day should be crowned with wreaths of flowers; that boys walk- 
ing two and two with garlands on their heads should scatter 
rose-leaves before the Blessed Sacrament ; that men carrying 
lamps should likewise wear roses twined round their heads ; 
and that the other boys and gii-ls of the procession should also 
have wreaths. 

The little village of Genzano near Eome and Villa Orotava 
in Teneriffe are especially famous for the flower-carpets which 
are there spread all over the streets where the Corpus Christi 
processions pass. Andersen in the " Improvisatore" has given a 
charming description of the Genzano celebration. In that vil- 
lage the church stands on rising ground, with two converging 
streets starting from its very doors. The procession of monks 
and clergy, school-children and confraternities, issues down 
one of these avenues and returns by the other, walking all 
the time on a thick carpet of flowers. These are for the most 
part wild flowers, skilfully formed into tapestry patterns of 
strange accuracy, each house on the street being, by imme- 
morial custom, bound to design and perfect a square corre- 
sponding to its own line of frontage. The armorial bearings of 
the lords of the soil, of the cardinal bishop of the diocese, and 
of the Holy See, figure very often in this marvellous carpet. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



291 



Fanciful patterns of all kinds abound, and this broad strip of 
novel tapestry is guarded on each side by " railings" of box 
wreaths hung in festoons. A narrow space is left on either side 
for the spectators, of whom there are hundreds, some from Eome 
and many from the surrounding villages. 

The flower-carpets at Villa Orotava are even more elaborate. 
For weeks before the great day, flowers of all kinds are assidu- 
ously collected in baskets 
from the inexhaustible gar- 
dens round about. After 
these have been sorted, ac- 
cording to color, they are 
torn to pieces and converted 
into opulent heaps of fra- 
grant petals. 

At dawn on the morning 
of the fiesta, moulds of wood 
and carpet are placed in posi- ... -,. . ,..,,,^^_^ 
tion ; and, later, the baskets t==.:^=«,^i^ jjIj Mr;jQfft 
of petals are brought for- 
ward by scores of willing 
workers. Then, patiently 
and skilfully, the jDractised 
artists begin to fill in the 
designs with glowing petals. 
The background — the full 
width of each street except- 
ing the footpaths — is usu- 
ally of an effective dark 
green composed of chopped 
heather. As a rule, one de- 
sign runs the whole length 
of a street, carried out in 
many combinations of color. 
But every new street introduces a new design. 

The street-corners are adorned with larger and more ambi- 
tious pictures, and several houses are noted for their own indi- 
vidual efforts. When all the coloring is deftly fitted in, the 
moulds are withdrawn, leaving the streets carpeted with many- 
colored flowers. The whole is then carefully sprinkled with 
water, so as to keep it fresh until the procession shall come and 
tread it out of existence. 

"Presently the entire pageant comes into view, — white-robed 
boys, priests in splendid vestments, and serried lines of chanting, 
crimson-robed ' Brothers of the Lord.' At this moment the dif- 
ferent effects of color are very striking, as the procession moves 




ff'W- 



•% 






'<^/ 









;/ 



Flower-Carpet at Villa Orotava. 



292 CURIOSITIES OF 

through the flower-carpeted street. Seen from above, the red 
kerchiefs which cover the women's heads form a glowing mass, 
rivalling the wide spread petals in variety, if not in beauty, of 
coloring. 

" But the procession has faded in the distance now ; the band 
strikes up a march, and the crowd surges into its wake. Coach- 
men rush off by side-streets to get their vehicles, and then one 
realizes, swiftly, the full extent of the floral holocaust. ISTothing 
remains but a scattered, pitiful covering of bruised petals, from 
which a faint perfume is wafted up appealingly to those who 
have witnessed the strange scene." (W. l!T. Keid, in The Strand 
Magazine, December, 1896.) 

Cracknut Sunday. The Sunday before Michaelmas Day was 
so known in Kingston-upon-Thames, for on that day the congre- 
gation, old and young alike, attended church with their pockets 
stufled with nuts, which they cracked during the service, the 
noise at times becoming so loud that the reading or sermon had 
to be suspended. The practice was with much difficulty sup- 
pressed about the end of the last century. The association of 
nuts with Michaelmas is a prevalent one. It may be remem- 
bered that Dr. Primrose's parishioners, retaining " the primeval 
simplicity of manners," among their other simple customs 
"religiously cracked nuts on Michaelmas Eve." 

Creeling the Bridegroom. A rather indelicate pastime once 
very common in Scotland, and not yet entirely extinct. It is 
most commonly practised just after a marriage. Early next 
morning a party of young men, including the most intimate 
friends of the happy man, provide themselves with a "creel" or 
wicker basket full of stones and take their station outside the 
door of the bridal chamber. Here they await the coming forth 
of the bridegroom, who, according to the rules of the game, 
must perform the ceremony of ablution in the waters of a run- 
nmg brook. This he attempts by a dart past his sentinels. 
Should the stream be at a distance, the chase thither is highly 
amusing. Not unfrequently, however, he eludes his wary friends 
by making his escape through a window or over the roof. 
Should all his attempts fail and the luckless wight be caught, 
the creel is then fastened firmly on his back, where it remains 
till the bride appears and declares that she has no cause of com- 
plaint against him, whereupon she is allowed to take it off". In 
some parts of Scotland creeling is done by wholesale. 

Once a year, or oftener, according to circumstances, all the 
men who have been married within the last twelve months or 
so are creeled. This consists in having a large basket of the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 293 

breadth of a man's back attached by a rope to the victim's 
shoulders. He has to run with all his speed from his own 
house to that of his next new-married neighbor. He is pursued 
by the unmarried men, who endeavor to fill his basket with 
stones. The wife following, armed with a knife, strives t.) re- 
lieve her husband of his burden by cutting the rope which 
attaches the basket to his person. 

In 1876 the marriage of Miss Whitelaw to Mr. ATthur St. 
Quintin Forbes took place in the parish church, Athelstane- 
ford. According to a report in the Glasgow Weekly Ifej'ald, 
September 9, 1876, " After the marriage cerftrsony was performed 
by the father of the bride it was stated tliat the newly-married 
pair left on their marriage trip in the 'afternoon, the bridegroom 
having first to go through the ancient custom of bearing the creel." 

Crispin and Crispinian, Sts., patrons of shoemakers. Their 
festival is celebrated on October 25, the anniversary of the 
translation of their remains to Eome in the ninth century. At 
Osnabriick, in Westphalia, the anniversary of an earlier trans- 
lation is kept on June 20. In the Anglican reformed calendar 
St. Crispin appears alone. 

Crispin and Crispinian are said to have been brothers, natives 
of Rome, who came to Soissons to preach the gospel and sup- 
ported themselves by shoemaking. In 284 Maximinus Hercules 
visited Soissons. Hating Christians, he caused the two brothers 
to be cast into prison. An abbey called Saint-Crepin-en-Chaie 
(in caved) is said to mark the spot where they were immured. 
The prefect of Gaul, Eictiovarus, was charged with their execu- 
tion. He had a hard time of it. First he ordered splinters of 
wood to be thrust between their nails and the quick. But the 
sphnters flew out and stabbed their tormentors, killing several. 
Millstones were tied around the brothers' necks and they were 
cast into the river Aisne. They swam across, bearing the mill- 
stones with them. Boihng lead was poured in vain over the 
indomitable shoemakers, and they were plunged into a bubbling 
caldron of pitch, oil, and fat. They emerged, refreshed. Eictio- 
varus, in disgust, pitched himself into the caldron and perished 
there. Then the martyrs, seeing their chief persecutor disposed 
of, placidly yielded their necks to the sword, and their heads 
were struck off without difliculty. 

The bodies of the martyrs are said to have been buried in Sois- 
sons where afterwards stood the church of St.-Crepin-le-Petit. 
It is customary at Soissons at Eogations for the procession to 
halt before the house No. 14 Eue de la Congregation, which oc- 
cupies the site of this old chapel, and there to chant an antiphon 
and collect of Saints Crispin and Crispinian. Charlemagne in 



294 CURIOSITIES OF 

the eighth century translated the main portion of the relics to 
Osnabriick, and in the ninth century these were taken to Eome 
and buried in the church of St. Lawrence. Nevertheless the 
church at Soissons exhibited during the Middle Ages, if not all 
the bones of the martyrs, at least a considerable number of them. 
These were scattered and lost during the Eevolution, save only a 
portion of the skull, a thigh-bone, and some bony splinters. Other 
relics are 'at Fulda. 

According to a Kentish tradition, the bodies of the martyrs 
were cast into the sea by their persecutors and were washed ashore 
at Eomney Marsh i:> that county. 

In France a cobblei^'r VH of tools was known as his Saint- 
Crepin. The bootjack was J^. '^H-^pin's stole, the awl St. Crispin's 
lance. Of a person too tightly booted it is said that he is "in the 
prison of St. Crispin." Formerly the cobblers worked at night 
with a large spherical bottle full of water between them and 
their candle or lamp. This was known as St. Crispin's lamp, and 
its invention was attributed to Crispin himself. 

French cobblers from the Middle Ages down to recent times 
celebrated the feast of SS. Crispin and Crispin ian with much 
pomp. They were roused in the morning by the bells of the 
church dedicated to their patron or containing a chapel so dedi- 
cated, whither they repaired in procession in the wake of a great 
crucifix and a monster wax candle. At Bourges the master-cob- 
blers who absented themselves without a legitimate excuse were 
fined a pound of wax, to be delivered at the chapel. After 
high mass had been heard, the paraders returned in similar 
order to sit down to a monster banquet, where the affairs of 
the guild were discussed. All this disappeared with the Eevo- 
lution. In Troyes the confraternity of St. Crispin was reorgan- 
ized in 1820 and established an annual festival which was cele- 
brated in the church of St. Urban on the Monday following the 
25th of October. The staff which is raffled off for the benefit of 
the guild is still borne to the church with great pomp. In other 
places St. Crispin is no longer commemorated. 

Up to 1870, however, the shoemakers of Moncontour met to- 
gether at a tavern and walked in pairs to the church, where holy 
bread was distributed to them at the mass and formed the chief 
feature of the subsequent banquet at the tavern. Street Arabs 
used to follow them, crying. — 

To-day is Monday, 

My friend. 
The shoemakers dress up 
To visit St. Crispin, 

My friend, 
Who used to work in his shirt. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 295 

The children still sing this song, which remains the sole relic 
of the festival. 

In Provence there is a legend that on the day when St. Cris- 
pin's feast was first celebrated by the shoemakers their patron 
was so pleased that he asked God to allow the best of them a 
glimpse of paradise. The Almighty consented, and St. Crispin 
lowered from heaven a long ladder garnished with peas. But 
the best men held back through humility, and the vainglorious 
ones scaled the miraculous ladder. Now, it happened that 
when they arrived the feast of St. Peter was being celebrated in 
the upper regions, with Peter himself as the officiating minister 
at high mass. St. Paul had been left in charge of the gates. 
As the eager mob pressed upward, St. Peter had just reached 
the Sursum corda, which St. Paul, being slightly deaf since his 
fall on the way to Damascus, misunderstood as Zou sus la cordo I 
So he cut the cord. The shoemakers fell to earth, and though 
God, who is good, would not allow them to be killed, many 
were badly hurt. And that is how it happens that so many 
shoemakers are cripples or hunchbacks. 

In England St. Crispin's Day has an additional significance 
as the anniversary of the battle of Agincourt (1415). Shake- 
speare's lines will occur readily to memory : 

This day is called the feast of Crispian : 
He that outlives this day and comes safe home 
"Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named, 
And rouse him at the name of Crispian. 
He that shall live this day and see old age 
Will yearly on the vigil feast his friends, 
And say, To-morrow is St. Crispian. 
******* 
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, 
From this day to the ending of the world, 
But we in it shall be remembered. 

{Henry V., Act iv. Sc. 3.) 

These lines show that St. Crispin's Day had been honored 
even before Agincourt. But the victory gave it an additional 
impetus, so that it survived after every other trade festival had 
died out. The custom was for the brethren of the craft to march 
in a great procession with banners and music, while various 
characters representing King Crispin and his court were sus- 
tained by different members. The processions at Edinburgh 
and Stirling were especially elaborate. At the former place the 
mock king was dressed in a very fair imitation of the royal 
robes, while at the latter both Houses of Parliament followed the 
pseudo-monarch, as well as officers and men-at-arms without 
number. In London, during the mayoralty of Sir Simon Eyre 



296 CURIOSITIES OF 

who had once been a shoemaker, an imitation king of the City 
followed very closely upon the heels of the imitation monarch 
in the shoemakers' annual procession, and ever afterwards the 
lord mayor was generally represented. The procession over, a 
dinner invariably took place, and the day closed with a dance, 
led off by the workman who had played the part of king. 

The last survival of the ancient procession is mentioned in 
Notes and Queries^ First Series, vol. vi. p. 243, as occurring at 
the town of Hexham, in Northumberland : " The shoemakers 
of the town meet and dine by previous arrangements at some 
tavern; a King Crispin, queen, prince, and princess, elected 
from members of their fraternity of families, being present. 
They afterwards form in grand procession (the ladies and their 
attendants excepted), and parade the streets with banners, 
music, etc., the royal party and suite gayly dressed in character. 
In the evening they reassemble for dancing and other festivities. 
To his majesty and consort, and their royal highnesses the prince 
and princess (the latter usually a pretty girl), due regal homage 
is paid during that day." 

At one time the cordwainers of Newcastle celebrated the 
festival of St. Crispin by holding a coronation of their patron 
saint in the court of the Freemen's Hospital at the West-gate, 
and afterwards walking in procession through the principal 
streets of the town. This caricature show produced much 
laughter and mirth. (Mackenzie : History of Newcastle^ 1827, 
vol. i. p. 88.) 

In the parishes of Cuckfield and Hurstpierpoint, in Sussex, St. 
Crispin's Day is kept with much rejoicing. The boys go round 
asking for money in the name of St. Crispin, bonfires are lighted, 
and it passes off very much in the same way as the 5th of 
November. It appears from an inscription on a monument to 
one of the ancient family of Bunell, in the parish church of 
Cuckfield, that a Sir John Bunell attended Henry Y. to France 
in the year 1415 with one ship, twenty men-at-arms, and forty 
archers, and it is probable that the observance of this day in 
that neighborhood is connected with that fact. {Notes and 
Queries^ First Series, vol. v. p. 30.) 

At Tenby, in Wales, it was customary on the eve of St. Cris- 
pin's Day to make an effigy of the saint and suspend it from 
the steeple or some other elevated place. In the morning it 
was formally cut down and carried in procession throughout the 
town. In front of the doors of each member of the craft the 
procession halted, when a document purporting to be the last 
will and testament of the saint was read, and in pursuance 
thereof some article of dress was left as a memento of the noisy 
visit. At length, when nothing remained to be distributed, the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 297 

padding which formed the body of the Q^gy was made into a 
football, and kicked about by the crowd till they were tired. As 
a sort of revenge for the treatment of St. Crispin, his followers 
hung up on St. Clement's Day the eflSgy of a carpenter, which 
was treated in a similar way. 

Cross. (Lat. Crux; Fr. Croix ; It. Croce.) No symbol, either 
in art or in religion, is so universal as the cross. It appears 
twice in our alphabet, as the letter T and the letter X. It is 
worn by priests on their sacrificial robes, by distinguished lay- 
men as a sign of distinction on occasions of state, and by male 
and female nonentities as taste may direct. It is graven on 
eucharistic vessels, embroidered on altar-cloths, and cut in relief 
on tombs and monuments. Some of the greatest churches and 
cathedrals of Christendom are fashioned in its shape. In Eu- 
ropean countries it is common to see large crosses erected in 
public places. The famous Charing (chere reine) Cross, in 
London, derives its name from the fact that it was one of the 
places at which King Edward I. set up a cross to mark where 
the body of his Queen Eleanor rested during the progress of the 
funeral cortege to Westminster. 

Yet it is a mistake to suppose that the cross has only a Chris- 
tian history. 

It was used as a religious symbol by the aborigines of North 
and South America, as well as by the most ancient nations of 
the Old World. Prescott tells us that the Spaniards found the 
cross as an object of worship in the temples of Mexico. Ee- 
searches in Central America and Peru prove that it was used in 
the same way by the inhabitants of those countries. Dr. Brinton, 
in " Myths of the New World," informs us that the Indians 
regard the cross as a mystic emblem of the four cardinal points 
of the compass. 

The ancient Phoenicians, Persians, Assyrians, and Brahmins 
looked upon the cross as a holy symbol, as is abundantly shown 
by the numerous hieroglyphics and other pictorial representa- 
tions on their monumental remains. Osiris by the cross gave 
liijjht eternal to the spirits of the just, beneath the cross the 
Muysca mothers laid their babes, trusting by that sign to secure 
them from the power of the evil spirits, and with that symbol 
to protect them the Etruscans, the ancient people of Northern 
Italy, calmly laid them down to die. 

The Thau of the Jews and the Tau of the Greeks, whence 
came the T of the Eoman alphabet, were held to be not merely 
letters, but sacred symbols, on account of their being suggested 
by a cross. 

Among the Scandinavians Thor was the thunder, and the 



298 CURIOSITIES OF 

hammer was his symbol. It was with this hammer that Thor 
crushed the head of the great Mitgard serpent; that he de- 
stroyed the giants ; that he restored to hfe the dead goats, which 
ever after drew his car; that he consecrated the pyre of Baldur. 
This hammer was a cross. In Iceland the cross of Thor is still 
used as a magical sign 'in connection with storms of wind and 
rain. Longfellow tells us how King Olaf kept Christmas at 
Drontheim : 

O'er his drinking-horn the sign 

He made of the Cross Divine, 

As he drank, and muttered his prayers ; 

But the Berserks evermore 

Made the sign of the Hammer of Thor 
Over theirs. 

l^either King Olaf nor his Berserkers, nor, indeed, Longfellow 
himself, seem to have realized that the two symbols were iden- 
tical. 

Comparative mythologists draw various deductions from these 
remarkable facts. Let us, however, appeal to a man who is not 
only a comparative mythologist, but a Christian priest. " For 
my own part," says the Eev. S. Baring Gould, " I see no difficulty 
in believing that the cross formed a portion of the primeval 
religion, traces of which exist over the whole world, among 
every people; that trust in the cross was a part of the ancient 
faith which taught men to believe in a Trinity, in a war in 
heaven, a paradise from which man fell, a Flood and a Babel, a 
faith which was deeply impressed with a conviction that a Virgin 
should conceive and bear a Son, that the dragon's head should 
be bruised, and that through shedding of blood should come re- 
mission. The use of the cross as a symbol of life and regenera- 
tion through water is as widely spread over the world as the 
belief in the ark of Noah. Maybe the shadow of the cross was 
cast further back into the night of ages, and fell on a wider 
range of country, than we are aware of" 

It was only natural that the early and mediaeval Christians, 
finding the cross a symbol of life among the nations of antiquity, 
should look curiously into the Old Testament to see whether 
there were not foresh ado wings in it of " the wood whereby right- 
eousness Cometh." Nor was their search unrewarded. In Isaac 
bearing the wood of the sacrifice they saw prefigured both 
Christ and the cross. They saw the cross in Moses with arms 
expanded on the Mount, in the pole with transverse bars upon 
which was wreathed the brazen serpent, in the two sticks gath- 
ered by the widow of Sarepta. But plainest of all they read it 
in Ezekiel ix. 4, 6 : " Go through the midst of the city, through 
the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 299 

men" that are to be saved from destruction by the sword. The 
word here rendered " mark" is in the Yulgate " signa than." 
The Thau was the old Hebrew character, shaped like a cross, 
which was regarded as the sign of life, felicity, and safety. 

Yet the cross was not always a symbol of honor. Among the 
Phoenicians and Syrians, and later among the Eomans, it was a 
punishment inflicted on slaves, robbers, assassins, and rebels, — 
among which last Jesus was reckoned, on account of his proclaim- 
ing himself King, or Messiah. The person sentenced to this pun- 
ishment was stripped of his 'clothes, except a covering around 
the loins. In a state of nudity he was beaten with whips. 
Such was the severity of this flagellation that numbers died of 
it. Jesus was crowned with thorns, and was made the subject 
of mockery; but insults of this kind were not common. In 
this instance they were owing to the petulance of the Eoman 
soldiers. 

The criminal, having been beaten, was condemned to the 
further suffering of carrying the cross to the place of punish- 
ment, which was commonly a hill near the public highway and 
out of the city. The place of crucifixion at Jerusalem was a 
hill to the northwest of the city. The cross, otherwise called 
the "post," — the unpropitious or ominous tree, — consisted of a 
piece of wood erected perpendicularly, and intersected by an- 
other one at right angles near the top. The crime for which the 
culprit suffered was inscribed on the transverse piece, near the 
top of the perpendicular one. There is no mention made by the 
ancient writers of anything on which the feet of the crucified 
person rested. It is known, however, that near the base of the 
perpendicular beam there projected a piece of wood, on which 
he sat, and which answered as a support to the body, — since the 
weight of the latter might have otherwise torn the hands by the 
nails driven through them. 

The cross, when driven firmly in the ground, rarely exceeded 
ten feet in height. The victim was elevated, and his hands were 
bound by a rope around the transverse beam and nailed through 
the palm. His feet were also nailed. He thus remained fastened 
until death ended his sufferings. While he exhibited any signs 
of life he was watched by guards ; but they left him when it 
appeared that he was dead. If there was no prospect that the 
victim would die on the day of execution, the executioners 
hastened the end by kindling a fire at the foot of the cross, so 
as to suffocate him with smoke ; or by letting loose upon him 
wild beasts; or occasionally, when in particular haste, by break- 
ing his bones upon the cross with a mallet, as upon an anvil. It 
was at one time customary to offer the criminal, before the com- 
mencement of his sufferings, a medicated drink, compounded of 



300 



CURIOSITIES OF 



wine and myrrh. The object of this was to produce intoxica- 
tion, and thereby to lessen the suffering. 

Crucifixion was not only the most ignominious, but by far the 
most cruel, mode of punishment. The victim sometimes lived 
until the seventh day. The thieves who were executed at the 
same time with our Saviour were broken with mallets on the 
same day ; and in order to ascertain the condition of Jesus a 

lance was thrust in his 
side, but no signs of life 
appeared. 

There is preserved in the 
museum of the Collegio 
Eomano at Rome a curious 
caricature which was found 
in the ruins of the ancient 
psedagogium for the impe- 
rial pages. This is a mock 
crucifix roughly scratched 
with a stylus. It was 
probably the work of some 




page, 



done to deride a 



ce Bet v 



Ancient Roman Caricature of the Cross. 



Christian comrade. It rep- 
resents a man with the 
head of an ass hanging on 
a cross, and to the left 
another figure in an atti- 
tude of adoration . A super- 
scription runs 'AXe^a/xevoq 
ffejSers 0eov. The Greek is 
a trifle shaky (ae^ere should 
be (Ts/Ssrai), but the obvious meaning is " Alexamenos worships 
God." The character of the letters indicates that the caricature 
dates from the early part of the third century. Thus it is evi- 
dent that even at that early period pagan Rome identified the 
cross with Christianity. 

Cicero says the very name of the cross should be removed 
afar " not only from the body, but from the thoughts, the eyes, 
the ears, of Roman citizens, for of all these things, not only the 
actual occurrence and endurance, but the very contingency and 
expectation, nay, the mention itself, are unworthy of a Roman 
citizen and a free man." Hence the force of St. Paul's frequent 
allusions to the humiliation which Christ endured when he suf- 
fered death upon the cross. 

It was precisely this idea which made the early Christians 
seize upon the cross as the emblem of their faith. That which 
had been the symbol of shame now became their glory. The 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 301 

instrument of Christ's passion, by his death upon it, became 
hallowed for all time. The mediaeval Christians, desiring to see 
the cross identified still more closely with the Jewish Church, 
inserted a legend to supplement the Old Testament. 

The story runs that Seth received from the angels three seeds 
of the forbidden tree which he saw standing, though blasted, 
upon the spot where sin had been first committed. Taking the 
seeds away with him, he put them in the mouth of the dead 
Adam, and so buried them. The young trees that grew from 
them, on the grave of Adam in Hebron, were carefully tended 
by Abraham, Moses, and David. After they were removed to 
Jerusalem the Psalms were composed beneath them, and finally 
they slowly grew together and formed a single giant tree. This 
tree was felled by the order of Solomon, in order that it might 
be preserved forever as a beam in the temple. The plan failed, 
however, for the carpenters found they could not manage the 
mighty beam. 

When they raised it to its intended position they found it too 
long ; then they sawed it, and it proved too short ; they spliced 
it, but to no purpose, they could not make it fit. This was taken 
as a sign that it was intended for some other purpose, and they 
laid it aside in the temple. On one occasion it was improperly 
made use of as a seat by a woman named Maximella, and she 
was at once enveloped in flames. She invoked the aid of Christ, 
and was driven from the city and stoned to death. In the 
course of its eventful history the beam became a bridge over 
Cedron, and, being then thrown into the stream of Bethesda, it 
gave to the waters healing virtues. Finally from it was made 
the cross of Christ. After the crucifixion it was buried in 
Calvary, and exhumed three centuries later by the Empress 
Helena, the mother of Constantine, who was miraculously 
directed to the spot where it lay. (See Cross, Invention of the.) 

Cross, Exaltation of the. A festival now celebrated on 
September 14 by the Latin and Greek Churches. In England it 
was known as Holy Cross or Holy Eood Day. Like the feast 
of the Invention, it was removed at the Eeformation, and remains 
only as a black-letter day. As such, with the Invention, it first 
reappeared in Queen Elizabeth's Calendar of 1561, and is again 
found in King James's Prayer Book of 1604. It was instituted 
in ancient times in memory of the miraculous apparition which 
Constantine saw as he was preparing to fight against Maxen- 
tius (October 26, 312). He beheld in the daylight a luminous 
cross in the heavens with the Greek inscription ' Ev toutoj utxa 
(" Conquer by this"), or, as the more familiar Latin freely trans- 
lates it, In hoc signo vinces (" By this sign thou shalfc (conquer"). 



302 CURIOSITIES OF 

Eusebius, who is not always trustworthy, assures us that he had 
heard the story related on oath by Constantine himself. {Vita 
Constanta., i. 28.) Thomassin suggests that Constantine himself 
instituted the feast. (Traite des Festes, ii. 124.) The day was 
kept with greater solemnity after 629. The 14th of September 
in that year marked the conclusion of a series of festivals in 
honor of the true cross. In order to understand these it is 
necessary briefly to recapitulate the events that immediately 
preceded. 

In June, 614, then, the Persian Emperor Chosroes captured 
and plundered Jerusalem. The churches, even that of the Holy 
Sepulchre, were burnt, and among other precious relics carried 
away was that portion of the true cross which had been left 
there by St. Helena. Only the sponge with which the soldiers 
gave our Saviour vinegar to drink, and the lance which pierced 
his side, were saved from the wreck and sent to Constantinople 
for safe-keeping. The sacred sponge was exposed to the view 
of the faithful in St. Sophia's Church on the Feast of the Exal- 
tation of the Cross in that year, and on the 26th of October a 
similar exposition was made of the lance. Then Heraclius de- 
clared war against Chosroes, and after many years of varying 
success finally cut the Persian army to pieces at Nineveh, Decem- 
ber 12, 627, The fragment of the true cross was recovered and 
brought to Constantinople in the spring of 629. Heraclius in 
person restored it to Jerusalem. He would fain have carried it 
upon his own shoulders into the city with the utmost pomp, but 
stopped suddenly at the entrance, and found that he was not able 
to go forward. The patriarch Zachary, who walked by his side, 
suggested to him that this pomp seemed not agreeable to the 
humble appearance which Christ made when he bore his cross 
through the streets of that city. The Emperor accepted the 
reproof He laid aside his purple and his crown, put on mean 
clothes, went along barefoot with the procession, and devoutly 
replaced the cross where it stood before. It still continued in 
the case in which it had been carried away, and the patriarch 
and clergy, finding the seals whole, opened the case with the key. 
Venerated it, and showed it to the people. Many miraculous 
cures are reported to have followed. (Butler : JLives of the 
JSaints, under date September 14.) 

On his return to Constantinople the Emperor paid due honors 
to that portion of the cross which was preserved there. The 
festivities closed on September 14. Thereafter similar ceremo- 
nies were performed every year. Butler quotes from the Em- 
peror Constantine Porphyrogenitus ("De Ceremoniis Aulse Con- 
stantinopolitanse," edition of 1751, Leipsic, folio II. ch. xxii. 
p. 74) as follows : 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 303 

" About seven days before the 1st of August the holy cross 
was taken out of the hoh^ treasury in which it was kept with 
other precious relics and rich holy vessels, betwixt the third and 
the sixth ode of matins then singing. It was laid on the ground, 
that the protopapa, or chief priest of the palace, might anoint 
it all over with balsam and precious perfumes. Then it was set 
up in the church of the palace of Our Lady of the Pharos, ex- 
posed to the veneration of the people. After matins the clergy 
of the palace assembled before it, singmg hymns in praise of the 
cross. The chief priest then took up the cross on his head, and, 
attended by the clergy and others in procession, carried it through 
the golden hall, before the oratory of St. Basil, placed it to be 
venerated by all the senate ; then proceeded to the palace of 
Daphne and exposed it in the church of St. Stephen. On the 
28th of July the priests began to carry the cross through all the 
streets and to all the houses, and afterwards round the walls of 
the city, that by the devotion of the people and their united 
prayers God would, through the cross and merits of his Son, 
bless and protect the city and all its inhabitants. On the 13th 
of September it was brought back to the palace and placed on 
a rich throne in the golden hall, where the clergy sung the 
hymns in praise of the cross during its exaltation there. It 
was afterward carried through all the apartments of the palace, 
and then deposited in the chapel of St. Theodorus. In the 
evening it was delivered back to the keeper of the sacred 
treasure. Next morning it was carefully cleansed by the pro- 
topapa and the keeper, and again deposited in the rich case in 
the treasury." 

A famous procession of the Blessed Sacrament was instituted 
in Avignon on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross a cen- 
tury before the similar processions on Corpus Christi Day were 
appointed generally by the Church. This was in the year 1226. 
France was in the throes of the Albigensian war. The Albigen- 
ses held possession of Avignon. Louis YIII. besieged the town, 
and took it on September 8. By way of atoning for the heretical 
desecration of the Catholic churches, he ordered a general pro- 
cession of the Corpus Domini on the feast of the Exaltation. 
The Bishe)p of Avignon bore down the holy sacrament from the 
church of the Doms, and the king himself, clad in sackcloth and 
girded with a rope, his head bare and a torch in his hand, took 
part in the procession, attended by Cardinal St. Angelo, the papal 
legate, and the whole court, as well as the magistrates and chief 
men of the city, all in penitential garments. With torches and 
incense and solemn invocation they traversed the entire city and 
went to the small church of the Holy Cross, then without the 
walls, where a few devout people were in the habit of assem- 



304 CURIOSITIES OF 

bling every Friday in honor of the Passion. The bishop placed 
the host in a stone niche at the side of the altar, and left it 
exposed to the veneration of the people, but veiled, after the 
custom of that time. The king visited the church daily during 
his stay in the city, and his example was followed by multi- 
tudes. 

This devotion induced the papal legate to authorize the con- 
tinued exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and he ordered the 
citizens, by way of reparation for giving countenance to the 
Albigenses, to visit the church every Friday for a year and there 
recite the Seven Penitential Psalms. This gave rise to the order 
of the Gray Penitents, the oldest company of the kind in the 
Church, — the one at Eome not being established till twenty years 
later. They constituted a kind of body-guard that took turns, 
day and night, to watch and pray before the Divine Host. They 
wore the sackcloth tunic to which the pious king had given 
consecration, and met in a body every Friday for special exer- 
cises of devotion and penance, and on account of their frequent 
scourgings were often called the Battus de la Croix. (See Separa- 
tion OP THE Waters.) 

The exposition of the host in the church of the Holy Cross, 
at first intended only to be temporary, was prolonged from time 
to time, and finally became perpetual, and has been continued to 
our day — that is, for six hundred and sixty years — without any 
other interruption than that caused by the French Eevolution 
and the First Empire. 

Cross, Invention or Discovery of the. A festival cele- 
brated by the Latin and Greek Churches on May 3, because on 
or about that day in the year 326 St. Helena, mother of Con- 
stantine the Great, is reputed to have discovered the cross on 
which Christ suffered. The story runs that the venerable lady, 
visiting the Holy Land in her seventy-ninth year, was guided 
to the site of Calvary by an aged Jew who had treasured up 
the local traditions which the anti-Christian animosity of the 
heathen conquerors of Jerusalem had failed entirely to obliter- 
ate. On excavation at a considerable depth three crosses were 
found, and with them, but lying apart by itself, was* the title 
placed by Pilate's command on the cross of Christ. The problem 
now presented itself, which was that cross? It was solved 
through the instrumentality of Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem. 
He suggested that the three crosses be carried to the bedside of 
an invalid woman in the city, not doubting but that Christ's cross 
would be discovered by its healing powers. The crosses were 
applied singly to the patient, who was immediately and per- 
fectly recovered by the touch of one of them, the other two 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 305 

having been tried without effect. The greater part of the cross, 
80 vindicated, was deposited in a church built on the spot of the 
Invention. Here it was enshrined in a splendid silver case. 
The remainder Helena took to her son in Constantinople, whence 
a portion was sent by Constantine to Rome. 

The first mention of the Invention, without any mention, 
however, of St. Helena's share in it, is by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, 
about the year 350. From this it is evident that the cross was 
exhibited at Jerusalem when St. Cyril was a priest. The next 
authority is St. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, who in a funeral 
sermon on the Emperor Theodosius in 395 gives St. Helena the 
credit of the discovery. As we go later the story is amplified 
and all the details are given with wonderful minuteness. 

But Eusebius, who lived at the time when the cross is said to 
have been found, and who in his Life of Constantine mentions 
St. Helena's visit to Palestine, has not a word about the Invention. 
What makes it more extraordinary is that Eusebius was present 
in 335 at the dedication of the Church of the Eesurrection, and 
has described the ceremonies, but is still silent about the cross. 
Further, a pilgrim named Burdigala who visited Jerusalem in 
333 has left behind him a minute record of all extant Christian 
relics, again with no word about the cross ; so that it is evident 
it could not have been shown in 333. Constantine died in 337 : 
so the finding of the cross must have occurred between 333 
and 337, if we accept St. Cyril's word for it that the finding 
occurred in the reign of that emperor. But St. Helena was in 
Jerusalem in 326. Thus stands the case. Any definite conclu- 
sion is impossible. 

Both in Constantinople and in Eome churches were built ex- 
pressly to receive so precious a relic. The former was known 
as the Basilica of the Holy Cross; the latter, the church of 
Santa Croce, still stands, and retains the relic which gave it its 
name. A festival to commemorate the Invention soon followed, 
Eome taking the lead in the fifth century, but it is not quite 
certain whether the date selected, May 3, was the anniversary 
of the Invention itself, or of the dedication of Santa Croce, or 
of Constantine's vision. Then came pilgrimages undertaken in 
order to obtain a sight of the cross. Lastly fragments of the 
sacred wood were sold at high prices to wealthy purchasers, it 
having been discovered that the wood exercised a power of 
miraculous self-multiplication, " ut detrimenta non sentiret, et 
quasi intacta permaneret." (Paulinus, Ep. XI. ad Lev.~) St. 
Cyril of Jerusalem, twenty-five years after the discovery, 
affirmed that pieces of the cross were spread all over the earth, 
and compares this marvel to the miraculous feeding of five 
thousand men, as recorded in the Gospel. 

20 



306 CURIOSITIES OF 

In A.D. 637 Jerusalem was reconquered by the Saracens, and 
nothing has since been heard of the fragment of the cross that 
had been left there. In the thirteenth century during the reign 
of St. Louis what remained of the portion taken by Helena to 
Constantinople was removed to Paris, and is still preserved in 
the Sainte-Chapelle. Sergius I. is said to have placed a portion 
of the cross in a silver box in St. Peter's Cathedral about 690. 
A reputed relic of the true cross was kept in the Tower of London 
as late as the reign of James I. 

The enemies of the Roman Church have made merry at the 
self-multiplying powers of the cross, which Paulinus and Cyril 
accepted as marvels not to be questioned. " To be short," says 
Calvin, "if a man would gather together all that hath been found 
of this cross, there would be enough to freight a great ship." 
Swift repeats and expands the jest. 

On the other hand, M. Eohault de Fleury, who calculates that 
the total volume of the wood of the original cross must have been 
somewhere about 178,000,000 cubic millimetres, has made a list 
of all the relics in Europe and Asia of which he can find any 
record, and the sum of their measurements amounts to only 
3,941,975 cubic millimetres, — a very small portion indeed of any 
cross that could sustain a man. 

Of places where relics of the Holy Cross have accumulated, 
Mount Athos stands pre-eminent with a total volume of 878,360 
cubic millimetres ; then Eome, with 537,587 ; Brussels. 516,090 ; 
Venice, 445,582 ; Ghent, 436,450 ; Paris, 237,731. 

All England can boast of but 30,516 cubic millimetres, of which 
8287 belong to Lord Petrie in two pieces. At St. Mary's, York, 
is a pectoral cross of the tenth century which contains two 
fragments. 

In the United States there is not an authenticated relic of the 
cross as large as half a lead-pencil, and there are many so minute 
as to be visible only through the aid of a microscope. The church 
of St. Francis Xavier in New York has a fragment which is 
exposed for veneration on Easter Sunday, as is the custom in 
European churches. Another fragment at the cathedral is shown 
on Good Friday. This relic is in a crystal and gold casket set 
with precious stones, and forms the centre of a handsome altar 
cross. The French church of St. John the Baptist in East 
Seventy- Sixth Street also possesses a relic of the cross. 

Every church which is the custodian of a portion of the cross 
is also in possession of a document bearing the seal of the Vati- 
can and testifying to the authenticity of the relic. The relic 
itself is most carefully sealed in an air-tight receptacle. If the 
seals were once broken the relics would lose their historical value, 
as identification would thenceforth be impossible. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 307 

Nevertheless M. de Fleury had an opportunity of microscopi- 
cally examining some of the larger fragments through the glass 
which encloses them, and he comes to the conclusion that the 
wood was either pine, or something closely allied to it. 

With Catholics this ought to settle a matter that has been 
much disputed. Wise theologians and simple country-folk have 
held many and various opinions as to the material of the cross. 
From Anselm, Aquinas, and others, we learn that the upright 
beam was made of the "immortal cedar;" the cross-beam, of 
cypress ; the piece on which the inscription was written, of olive ; 
and the piece for the feet, of palm : hence the line 

Ligna crucis palma, cedrus, cupressus, oliva. 

Sir John Mandeville's account of the legend diifers from this. 
He says the piece athwart was made of " victorious palm ;" 
the tablet, of "peaceful olive ;" the trunk, of the tree of which 
Adam had eaten ; and the stock, of cedar. Some versions say 
that it was made of fir, pine, and box; others, of cypress, cedar, 
pine, and box ; one names cedar for the support of the feet, cy- 
press for the body, palm for the hands, and olive for the title. 
Southey, in his " Common-Place Book" and " Omniana," says that 
the four kinds of wood were symbolical of the four quarters of 
the globe, or all mankind. Some afiirm that the cross was made 
entirely of the stately oak. Chaucer, speaking of the Blessed 
Virgin, says, — 

Benigne braunchlet of the pine tree. 

Popular superstition in many countries favors the idea that it 
was made of the elder-tree ; therefore, although fuel may be 
scarce and these sticks plentiful, the poor people will not burn 
them. In Scotland the elder is called the bourtree, and the fol- 
lowing rhyme is indicative of peasant beliefs : 

Bourtree, bourtree, crooked rung, 
Never straight and never strong, 
Ever bush and never tree, 
Since our Lord was nailed on thee. 

Chambers's " Book of Days" records an instance of the belief 
that a person is perfectly safe under the shelter of an elder-tree 
during a thunderstorm, as the lightning never strikes the tree 
of which the cross was made. Experience has taught that this 
is a fallacy, although many curious exceptional instances are 
recorded. James Napier, in his " Folk-Lore of the Northern 
Counties of England," tells us of a peculiar custom. The elder 
is planted in the form of a cross upon a newly-made grave, and 



308 CURIOSITIES OF 

if it blooms it is a sure sign that the soul of the dead persou is 
happy. Dyer, in his "English Folk-Lore," says that the most 
common belief in England is that the cross was made of the 
aspen {Populus tremula)^ the leaves having trembled ever since at 
the recollection of their guilt. Another legend is that all the 
trees shivered at the crucifixion except the aspen, which has been 
doomed to quiver ever since. An extract from Mrs. Hemans's 
" Wood Walk and Hymn" is worthy of quotation here as illus- 
trating the first idea : 

Father. Hast thou heard, my boy, 
The peasant's legend of that quivering tree ? 

Child. No, father ; doth he say the fairies dance 
Amidst its branches ? 

Father. Oh, a cause more deep, 
More solemn far, the rustic doth assign 
To the strange restlessness of those wan leaves. 
The Cross he deems, the blessed Cross, whereon 
The meek Kedeemer bowed his head to death. 
Was formed of aspen wood ; and since that hour 
Through all its race the pale tree hath sent down 
A thrilling consciousness, a secret awe, 
Making them tremulous, when not a breeze 
Disturbs the airy thistle-down or shakes 
The light lines from the shining gossamer. 

In Ulster the aspen is called " quiggenepsy," — z.e., "quaking 
aspen." In support of these beliefs the aspen still flourishes near 
Jerusalem. In the west of England there is a tradition that 
the cross was formed of the mistletoe, which before that event 
used to be a fine forest tree, but has since been doomed to lead 
a parasitical existence. The gypsies believe that it was made 
of the ash-tree. In Cheshire the Arum maculatum is called 
" Gethsemane," because it is said to have been growing at the 
foot of the cross, and to have received some drops of blood on its 
petals. 

In Scotland it was formerly believed that the dwarf birch is 
stunted in growth because from it were fashioned the rods with 
which Christ was scourged. 

The title in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin is said to have been 
found by St. Helena with the cross. It was brought to Eome 
and deposited in the basilica of Santa Croce. It is said to have 
been hidden in the time of Yalentinian lest it should be stolen 
by the Goths ; but it was seen in or about 570 by Antoninus 
Martyr, after whose time it disappeared, to be discovered again 
built up in an arch near the roof, enclosed in a leaden box, on the 
cover of which these words were engraved : " Hie est titulus 
verse crucis." It was found to be a little board about a hand's 
breadth and a half, much decayed, covered with a partially legi- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 309 

ble inscription in Latin and Greek, the writing being from right 
to left, Hebrew fashion. A line of writing has been broken off 
the upper part, but parts of a few letters which remain may have 
been those of the Hebrew title. 

The nails used at the crucifixion, the crown of thorns, and the 
lance which pierced Christ's side were all included in the Inven- 
tion. All have their own legendary history. 

One of the original four nails is said to have been thrown by 
the Empress Helena into the Adriatic during a storm, which it 
instantly quelled. A second, after having been placed either in 
his crown or his helmet by Constantine, somehow found its way 
in a mutilated state to the church of Santa Croce in Eome. The 
two others were made into a bit by Constantine, whose possession 
is disputed by Milan and Carpentras. But Mr. John Ashton, in 
his book on "The Legendary History of the Cross," enumerates 
no fewer than thirty-two of these nails in twenty-nine towns, in- 
cluding three at Venice, two at Eome, a point at Compiegne, and 
the famous Iron Crown preserved at Monza, which is a circlet of 
gold " indebted for its name of ' Iron' to a thin band of that 
metal" within. The crown is too small to be actually worn ; but 
Charlemagne was crowned with it in 774, and " Napoleon did not 
think himself King of Italy until he had placed this precious 
diadem on his head in 1805." 

Butler explains that " some multiplication of these relics has 
sprung from the filings of that precious relic put into another 
nail made like it, or at least from hke nails which have touched 
it." He points out that the true nail in Santa Croce has been 
manifestly filed, and is now without a point. 

Cross, Sign of the. In the Eoman and Greek Churches it 
is customary for the faithful to make the sign of the cross by 
manual gesture on various public and private occasions, as before 
and after prayer, and in conferring baptism, blessing, etc. The 
most usual form of this rite, practised by the clergy and laity 
alike, is to place the thumb or the forefinger on the forehead, say- 
ing, " In the name of the Father ;" on the breast, saying, " and of 
the Son ;" on the left shoulder, saying, " and of the Holy Ghost ;" 
and lastly on the right shoulder, with the concluding word, 
" Amen." The sign is also made in the air by the officiating cler- 
gyman at baptisms, at the consecration of the emblems in the 
mass, and at blessings, always in the direction of the object of the 
ceremonial. St. Basil refers the custom to apostolic times, and 
it is certain that it was a familiar one by the beginning of the third 
centur}-, for Tertullian says, " At every step and motion, when we 
go in and out, when we dress or put on our shoes, at the baths, at 
the table, when lights are brought, when we go to bed, when we 



310 CURIOSITIES OF 

sit down, whatever it is which occupies us, we mark the forehead 
with* the sign of the cross." (De Coron. Mil., iii.) In the Eoman 
Church the sign is usually made with the thumh, in the Greek 
Church with the forefinger, and among the Armenians and the 
Easkolnik with index and middle fingers. In the Lutheran 
Church the custom of making the sign of the cross was retained 
to a limited extent at the Eeformation. In the Church of Eng- 
land it is only prescribed to be used in baptism, but it is used by 
some at holy communion, as well as privately, its object being 
"to remind a Christian of his profession." 

A very similar rite is practised by the higher Lamas of Thibet 
before commencing any devotional exercises. " The Lama gently 
touches his forehead either with the finger or with the bell, utter- 
ing the mystic OM ; then he touches the top of his chest, utter- 
ing AH ; then the epigastrium (pit of the stomach), uttering 
HUM, and some Lamas add SYA-HA, while others complete the 
cross by touching the left shoulder, uttering DAM and then 
YAM. It is alleged that the object of these manipulations is to 
concentrate the parts of the Sattva, namely, the body, speech, 
and mind, upon the image or divinity which he is about to 
commune with." (Waddall : The Buddhism of Thibet.) 

The sign of the cross made by gesture is entitled the crux usu- 
alis. But when the sign is actually impressed on some material, 
as with a pen on a piece of paper, it becomes a crux exemplata, 
which is a name common to all representations of the cross, 
whether written, painted, or sculptured. In the fifth century it 
became customary to apply a cross mark at the beginning of 
treaties, diplomatic notes, etc., in lieu of the customary invoca- 
tion of the name of God, and at the end, beside the name of 
the signer, as a token of trustworthiness. Ecclesiastics always 
used it in this way, and the primates of the Church still con- 
tinue the practice. The Greek Emperor used a red cross be- 
fore his name in signing ; the Byzantine princes, a green ; the 
English kings, a golden. 

Crossing the Lfine, i.e., either the equator or the Arctic cir- 
cle, was formerly the occasion, not only among merchant vessels 
and men-of-war, but also among whalers, for curious ceremonies 
that are now well-nigh obsolete. The details of the performance 
varied even among the ships of the same waters, but it always 
took the form of some tribute to Neptune e:5%cted from such of 
the officers, passengers, or crew as had never hefore crossed the 
line in question. Captain Marryat, in " Frank Mildmay," gives 
a description which covers all the essential points. He repre- 
sents the ship as being hailed from the supposed depths of the 
sea the evening before the line ^ to be reached, and the captain 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 311 

is given the compliments of Neptune and asked to muster his 
novices for the sea-lord's inspection. The next day the ship is 
hove to at the proper moment, and Neptune, with his dear Am- 
phitrite and suite, comes on board over the bow, or through a 
bridle-port, if the weather permits. " Neptune appears," writes 
Marryat, " preceded by a young man dandily dressed in tights 
and riding on a car made of a gun-carriage drawn by six nearly 
naked blacks, spotted with yellow paint. He has a long beard 
of oakum, an iron crown on his head, and carries a trident with 
a small dolphin between its prongs. His attendants consist of 
a secretary, with quills of the sea-fowl ; a surgeon, with lancet 
and pill-box ; a barber, with a huge wooden razor, with its blade 
made of an iron hoop ; and a barber's mate, with a tub for a 
shaving-box. Amphitrite, wearing a woman's night-cap with 
sea- weed ribbons on her head, and bearing an albicore on a 
harpoon, carries a ship's boy in her lap as a baby, with a mar- 
linspike to cut his teeth on. She is attended by three men 
dressed as nymphs, with curry-combs, mirrors, and pots of 
paint. The sheep-pen, lined with canvas and filled with water, 
has already been prepared. The victim, seated on a platform 
laid over it, is blindfolded, then shaved by the barber, and finally 
plunged backward into the water. Ofl&cers escape by paying a 
fine in money or rum." 

To this day it is the roughest sort of rough man-handling, 
but it is a short shrift for those who take it good-naturedly, 
and, like bear-baiting, affords great amusement to the specta- 
tors. 

Cucking- Stool. This is sometimes confounded with the 
ducking-stool, but was entirely dissimilar. Its exact construc- 
tion cannot be explained in these pages. Let it suffice to say 
that it was a seat of even flagitious indelicacy upon which of- 
fending females were exposed at their own doors or in some 
public place as a means of putting upon them the last degree 
of ignominy. The cucking-stool, in fact, was analogous to the 
Sedes Stercoraria in which a new Pope was formerly placed 
during the installation ceremonies, to remind him that he was 
human. 

Curfew. (Fr. Couvre-feu.) A bell tolled at evening as a sig- 
nal to the inhabitants to cover fires, extinguish lights, and retire 
to rest. It is erroneously said to have been instituted in Eng- 
land by William the Conqueror as an arbitrary bit of tyranny, 
and the nursery historian has waxed sentimental over the wrongs 
of the conquered Saxon, and conjured up pictures that must be 
balm to the down-trodden Celt. Even Thomson tells uS; — 



312 CURIOSITIES OF 

The shivering wretches at the curfew sound 
Dejected sunk into their sordid heds. 

But the couvre-feu was known before William's time, both in 
England and on the Continent. He did, indeed, issue an edict 
on the subject, and, although this edict may incidentally have 
helped to put down the Saxon beer-clubs, which were hotbeds of 
political conspiracies, its primary aim was as a precaution against 
fire. That danger was an ever-present one in those days of 
chimneyless wooden houses. 

The ancient city ordinances of London abound in stringent fire 
regulations. None of them, however, was more effective than 
the " cover-fire" bell, which as far back as the time of King 
Alfred was rung in certain places in England. William's edict 
rendered compulsory an ancient custom. But it was a wise legis- 
lative act, and not a bit of arbitrary tyranny. We find plenty 
of early traces of the custom or its equivalent, as, for instance, 
the blowing of a horn at the market-place in Continental 
Europe. 

It is a curious instance of the conservative tendency of the 
rural mind in England that the cusjbom of ringing the curfew 
should have so long survived its original significance. 

Curfew is still religiously tolled in many hundreds of towns 
and villages, either all the year round or — which is still more 
usual — from September to April. No part of the kingdom can 
claim it as a special proof of its adherence to a primitive simplicity. 
Geographically considered, its survivals are by no means unin- 
structive. It tolls from the Isle of Wight in the south through 
Kent and Surrey, Middlesex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincoln, York, 
Durham, and Northumberland, and even across the border, in 
the Scotch lowlands. And it can be traced again through Cum- 
berland and Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Stafford, Notts, 
Leicestershire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, Hertfordshire, Mon- 
mouthshire, down to Devon and Dorset. 

It is, in short, perpetuated all over the kingdom. Here and 
there it has become identified with local customs. At Newcastle, 
until it was discontinued, it was the signal for shutting the shops. 
At Durham, again (where it is tolled at nine o'clock), it heralds 
the closing of the college gates ; while in many Cheshire and 
Yorkshire villages it has for hundreds of years warned farmers 
to lock up their cattle for the night. The almost universal hour 
at which it is tolled is eight o'clock in the evening, although here 
and there it is rung instead at seven and nine o'clock. In some 
places, too, there is a morning curfew, — a curious variation. At 
Stow, for instance, it is, or was lately, rung as early as four 
o'clock in the morning, and at Tamworth at the more seasonable 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 313 

hour of six o'cloelc. At Waltham in the Wolds, again, a grateful 
farmer, who was lost in the snow and found his way home by 
its sound, left a field to endow a five o'clock curfew forever. 

The facts, indeed, plainly show that the custom has kept its 
hold on the popular sympathies through all the ages. The 
Pilgrims and the Puritans brought it over with them to New 
England, where the curfew bell is still rung in many towns and 
villages. In the "Bells of Lynn" Longfellow appeals to the 
" curfew of the setting sun" as heard at Nahant, and other al- 
lusions are freely found in our native poets. 

Nay, so firmly has the curfew intrenched itself in parts of New 
England that in 1894 there was a popular uprising at the old 
seaport town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, when the more 
progressive residents sought to abolish the ringing of the bell of 
the North Church at nine o'clock every night. This bell rang 
when General Washington stopped over-night in the town, and 
also when Daniel Webster was reading cases in a law oflSce there. 
It had sent generations to bed. Should it be silent now ? " No !" 
cried the old-timers, as they rose in their wrath and kept on 
ringing it. 

It was about the same time that the curfew habit spread to 
the West, and, later, to the South. It started at Stillwater, 
Minnesota, and by July, 1895, about twenty other towns in that 
State had passed curfew ordinances. Not only that, but other 
towns in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, South Dakota, Nebraska, 
Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Indiana, and Georgia had followed 
the leader. 

The general principle of the curfew ordinances is the same 
wherever they have been adopted, but the ordinances differ in 
details. The idea is to provide that children under a certain age, 
varying in different towns from eighteen down to fifteen years, 
shall not be on the streets of the town after a stated time, 
ranging from half-past seven p.m. to nine p.m., unless accompanied 
by a lawful guardian. The penalty for violation of the ordi- 
nance also varies in different towns. 

Throughout Minnesota children under sixteen years of age are 
required to be at home by nine o'clock at night, or very soon 
after. Curfew is sounded by tolling nine strokes on the fire-bell 
of the town. Any child found on the streets after that hour 
unaccompanied by a guardian may be arrested, and for the first 
offence taken home to his parents and cautioned. If arrested a 
second time, a fine of from three to ten dollars, or imprisonment 
of from three to ten days in jail, at the discretion of the magis- 
trate, is the penalty. 

In most other Western States the curfew rings earlier than in 
Minnesota. Usually it is rung at either eight or half-past eight 



314 CURIOSITIES OF 

o'clock. Warrensburg, Missouri, rings the curfew at half-past 
seven p.m. Topeka, Kansas, puts the age- limit at sixteen years ; 
Wallace, Idaho, puts it at fifteen years. Chanute, Kansas, re- 
quires children to be off the streets as early as seven o'clock. 
Way Cross, Georgia, permits children to be abroad until ten 
o'clock. A unique addition to the curfew ordinance at Pierce, 
Nebraska, makes it unlawful for any boy when spoken to to 
return other than a civil answer. 

Custom of the Country. The name popularly given to a 
custom said to have flourished in France, Scotland, and England 
during the feudal ages which gave to the lord of the manor the 
right to deflower the daughters of his vassals upon their mar- 
riage night. Aubrey De Yere alludes to this right in his play 
of "St. Thomas of Canterbury:" 

Customs ! Customs ! 
Custom was that which to the lord of the soil 
Yielded the virgin one day wedded. 

Beaumarchaia, with an abuse of dramatic license, makes the 
custom an episode of his play " The Marriage of Figaro," though 
it certainly never existed in Spain. A comic opera, " Le Droit 
du Seigneur," produced half a century ago at the Opera Comique 
at Paris, is still occasionally played. There is also a well-known 
picture of the same name by Jules Garnier. A wedding party 
has just left the church, and the lord is leading away the unwill- 
ing bride. Two monks are striving to reconcile the groom to 
the inevitable : one of them holds up three fingers, possibly to 
signify the number of days that must elapse before his bride will 
be restored to him. Literature, art, and the drama have com- 
bined to impress upon the mind the existence of this custom. 
Yet the real historical evidence is not convincing. It is possible 
that such a right may have been asserted by some semi- savage 
lord here and there, but that it ever existed as a recognized and 
established custom is highly incredible. Louis Yeuillot, in " Le 
Droit du Seigneur au Moyen-Age" (" The Eight of the Lord in 
the Middle Ages"), published in 1854, treats the subject exhaust- 
ively, and comes to the above conclusion. There was indeed a 
Droit du Seigneur, or jus primce noctis, but the Seigneur in ques- 
tion was the Lord in heaven, and the jus, established by the 
Council of Carthage in 398, ordained that out of respect for the 
nuptial benediction, and for the greater glory of God, a newly 
married couple should remain continent on their wedding night. 
Later, in conformity with the advice given by the archangel 
Eaphael to the son of Tobit (Tobit vi, 16-22), the precept was 
extended to three days immediately foll6wing the marriage. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 315 

According to several rituals of the fifteenth century, more espe- 
cially at Liege, Limoges, and Bordeaux, the jus primoe noctis 
seems to have been in Ibrce up to that time, but by the sixteenth 
century it had come to be a mere religious counsel. It is possi- 
ble that the myth, if myth indeed it be, arose from a misinterpre- 
tation of the Latin words jus primce noctis. 

A curious reversal of this custom is quoted by Lagrize in his 
" Histoire du Droit dans les Pyrenees" (1868). He finds his au- 
thority in a charter of 1330. When the Seigneur de Sadirac mar- 
ried, his vassal, the Seigneur de Brorden, was bound to meet the 
bride at the boundary of his lands, accompanied by his tenants. 
There the vassal was to dismount from his horse, to salute the 
lady, assist her to alight, kiss her, and strip her of all her clothes 
to the chemise, keeping them as his perquisite. If he politely 
vouchsafed to lend her the garments until she reached her home, 
the ceremony of disrobing her might be postponed until then, 
but the spoils still belonged to him. 

Cuthbert, St., patron saint of Durham, England, and of its 
cathedral. The anniversary of his death, March 20, was a great 
festival in the early English Church, which commemorated also 
the 4th of September as the anniversary of the translation of 
his body to Durham. Originally a shepherd boy in the valley 
of the Lauder, a vision which he saw, while tending his flocks, 
of St. Aidan's soul being received into paradise, induced him 
to enter the neighboring monastery of Old Melrose. As an 
evangelist he shares with King Oswald and St. Aidan the honor 
of the conversion of Northeastern England. He became prior 
of Melrose, then was for twelve years a simple monk at Lindis- 
farne, and for nine years an austere hermit in a rude hut on 
House Island, one of the Fame group, then Bishop of Hexham, 
and in 685 Bishop- of Lindisfarne. Two years later he resigned 
his bishopric and returned to his hut on House Island, where he 
died March 20, 687. 

By his own desire, he was buried in the monastery of St. Peter 
in Lindisfarne. Many miracles were reported at the tomb, and 
Cuthbert's fame grew even greater after death than before. Bede 
relates that in 698 the monks disinterred his body and found it 
uncorrupted. It was put in a fresh coffin, which contained also 
the skull of St. Oswald, and placed in the ground. In 875 the 
monks fleeing before an invasion of the Danes carried the sacred 
relics with them, and for many years wandered with them from 
place to place throughout Northumbria and Southern Scotland, 
everywhere willingly supported by the faithful, until finally in 
883 they reached Durham. Here St. Cuthbert caused his coffin 
to remain immovable for three days, and then made known his 



316 CURIOSITIES OF 

wish to be sepultured where the cathedral now stands. The 
first church was built of wood, but at the end of four years this 
was replaced by one of stone. In 1104 the present cathedral 
had sufiiciently advanced towards completion to allow of the 
reinterment of the saint in a magnificent shrine, which shared 
with that of St. Edward at Westminster and St. Thomas at 
Canterbury the homage of England. 

This shrine, we are told, was of green marble, partly gilt, and 
so rich in offerings and jewels that it was allowed to be one of 
the most sumptuous in England. In the base were worked four 
seats where cripples and invalids might get rest and healing. 
Over the shrine waved the famous banner of St. Cuthbert, crim- 
son and green, with a square of white velvet in the centre, and 
within the square a sacred relic, the corporal-cloth wherewith 
St. Cuthbert used to cover the chalice when he said mass. This 
banner was at the battle of Brankenfield in Henry the Eighth's 
time, and brought home with it the royal banner of Scotland, 
and many Scottish noblemen's banners, which were hung in the 
feretory. This consecrated standard was thought by north- 
country people to be one of the most magnificent relics in Eng- 
land, and was carried out only on great processions, such as 
Easter Day, Ascension Day, Whitsunday, Corpus Christi Day, 
and St. Cuthbert's Day. 

The corporal- cloth which the banner of St. Cuthbert con- 
tained was that which the night before the battle of Nevill's 
Cross Prior Fossour had been commanded in a vision to mount 
on a spear and carry to the Eed Hills to abide the battle on 
the morrow. The great victory that followed, and the death of 
seven Scottish earls and fifteen thousand Scotchmen, were nat- 
urally attributed to St. Cuthbert and his corporale, and in this 
battle was taken that famous Scottish relic, the black rood of 
Scotland, a silver cross miraculously brought by a deer to a 
Scotch king who was hunting. The sacred banner is said to 
have been contemptuously burnt by the French wife of that 
sacrilegious dean, Whittingham. 

At the west end of the shrine stood an altar for mass to be 
said on St. Cuthbert's Day, when the prior and all the brethren 
kept open house in the fratry. At this feast they used to draw 
up the gilt and painted wooden cover of the shrine with a rope 
whence depended six silver bells which " made a goodly sound." 

Anciently no women were allowed to approach the shrine. A 
blue line of stone in the floor of the nave still marks the limit 
beyond which they dared not go. 

Nor was any tomb save that of St. Cuthbert tolerated within 
the church until the first exception was made in 1310 in favor of 
Bishop Anthony Bek. A tradition (which architectural evidence 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 317 

proves false, but which is significant none the less) says that even 
his body might not be carried through the church, and that a 
breach was made in the chapel wall to admit it. 

In 1542, at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries under 
Henry YIII., the shrine was destroyed, and the tomb broken 
open. -' They found many goodly and valuable jewels, especially 
one precious stone, which was of value sufficient to redeem a 
prince. After the spoil of ornaments and jewels, they ap- 
proached near to the saint's body, expecting nothing but dust 
and ashes ; but, perceiving the chest he lay in strongly bound 
with iron, the goldsmith with a smith's great forge-hammer broke 
it open, when they found him lying whole, uncorrupt, with his 
face bare, and his beard of a fortnight's growth, and all the 
vestments about him, as he was accustomed to say mass, and his 
metwand of gold lying by him." 

The marvel was reported to the king, who, more lenient than 
in the case of the rival saints Thomas a Becket and Edward 
the Confessor, ordered the body to be returned to the prior. 
The latter buried it beneath the place where the shrine had stood. 

In 1827 the tomb was again opened. In it were found the 
coffin made in 1542, within this the successive fragments of two 
other coffins answering to the dates of the two interments in 698 
and 1104, and then an entire skeleton w^rapped in the rags of 
once-rich robes, and a second skull, obviously that of St. Oswald. 
The bones were piously replaced. Fragments of the episcopal 
garments, together with a comb and other relics found in the 
coffin, are now shown in the cathedral library. A sapphire ring, 
one of the spoils wrested from the tomb by the officers of 
Henry VIII., passed after a series of adventures to the monas- 
tery of English canonesses at Paris, which also preserves a tooth 
of St. Cuthbert. 

Cwnstree. In Wales an ordeal through which a shrewish 
wife was obliged to pass if in the course of a connubial tiff she 
struck her husband with any unaccustomed weapon, as, for ex- 
ample, a pair of tongs. Fer contra^ a poker was a recognized 
implement of domestic warfare. Husband and wnfe were both 
represented by attorneys in a special court (their personal appear- 
ance there being disallowed), which was usually held in the town 
court. When a verdict of guilty had been returned by a proper 
jury of twelve good men and true, the sentence of death was 
passed by the judge. An effigy of the woman was then con- 
veyed to a gibbet below the town hall clock, and, after being 
hanged, was fired at until completely destroyed by the crowd. 
It is said that the custom did much towards preventing family 
quarrels. 



318 CURIOSITIES OF 



Dance of Torches, Royal. A distinctive feature at all wed- 
dings in the roj-al house of Prussia. After the bridal couple 
have been pronounced man and wife, the musicians are placed 
on the solid silver stage of the White Hall in the royal palace of 
Berlin, and the couple, preceded by six ministers of state and six 
lieutenant-generals, two by two, all holding white torches, make 
the tour of the hall, saluting the company as they go. The 
bride then gives her hand to the Emperor, he in turn to the 
Queen-mother, the bridegroom extends his to the Empress, and 
she in turn to the best man. The princes and princesses, follow- 
ing, lead up the dance in like professional manner. After the 
dance follows the distribution of the bride's garter among the 
guests. In place of the real garter, however, are substituted 
pieces of silk, three inches long, woven in the colors of the 
bride's hose, stamped with her monogram, and fringed with silver. 

Dart, Throwing of the. A ceremony performed triennially 
on the first Thursday of September in Cork Harbor, Ireland. 
By virtue of a clause in the citj^'s charter, the mayor of Cork 
is constituted Admiral of the Port, but every three years he must 
claim jurisdiction over it by throwing a dart into the sea. The 
weapon is generally made of mahogany tipped and winged with 
bronze. At two o'clock in the afternoon the members of the 
Cork Town Council embark on board a steam-vessel, attended by 
all the civic officers and the band of the Cork civic artillery. A 
number of ladies also attend. The steamer proceeds out to sea 
until she reaches an imaginary line between Poor Head and Cork 
Head, which is supposed to be the maritime boundary of the 
borough. Here the mayor dons his official robes and proceeds, 
attended by the mace and sword-bearer, the city treasurer, and 
the town clerk, all wearing their official robes, to the prow of 
the vessel, whence he launches his javelin into the water, thereby 
asserting his authority as lord high admiral of the port. The 
affair winds up with a banquet in the evening at the mayor's 
house. The entire ceremony has a remarkable analogy to the 
Marriage of the Adriatic (^. v.') which was anciently performed 
by the Doges of Venice. A similar custom also once existed in 
Dublin, where it was called "Riding the Fringes" (franchises), 
in which the lord mayor and corporation, after riding round the 
inland boundaries of the borough, halted at a point on the shore 
near Bullock, whence the lord mayor hurled a dart into the sea, 
the spot where it fell marking the limit of the maritime juris- 
diction. (See also Bounds, Beating the.) 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 319 

David, St. (446-549), patron of Wales. The anniversary of 
his death on March 1 is celebrated by Welshmen wherever a 
sufficient number are congregated in any part of the world. 
Welsh legends relate many marvels of this saint, as that he was 
a descendant of the Virgin Mary in the eighteenth generation, 
and also an uncle of King Arthur, that an angel foretold his 
birth thirty years before it happened, that another angel accom- 
panied him through life and administered to all his wants, that 
when he was baptized b}^ Alicas, Bishop of Munster, at Porth- 
claes, a spring miraculously bubbled up for the purpose (it is still 
reverenced as a holy well), and that when he preached, the 
ground beneath his feet rose to form a natural pulpit. But in 
fact his -hfe and work were sufficiently notable without these 
accretions of myth. He was a great preacher and controver- 
sialist, and as Archbishop of Carleon and Primate of Wales an 
able organizer and disciplinarian. The uncompromising enemy 
of Pelagianism, he succeeded in stamping out that heresy in 
Wales. St. David transferred the archiepiscopate from Carleon 
to Menevia, now St. David's. Here he was buried, but in 964 
his body was transferred to Glastonbury. It was destroyed when 
Henry YIII. dismantled that abbey. The empty shrine still 
stands in the choir of St. David's Cathedral. In the front of it 
are four quatrefoil apertures, through which pious votaries de- 
posited their offerings, which the monks secured in strong iron 
boxes behind. 

Pope Calixtus, who canonized the saint in 1120, declared that 
two visits to St. David's were as good as one visit to Eome, 
according to the old monkish lines, — 

Meneviam pete bis, Komam procedere si vis ; 

^qua tibi merces redditur hie et ibi : 

Koma semel quantum, bis dat Menevia tantum. 

Among those who made the pilgrimage to St. David's shrine 
were William I., Henry II., and Edward I. :iDd his queen 
Elean6r, if the local tradition is worthy of belief 

Various reasons are assigned by the Welsh for wearing the leek 
on his anniversary. The most usual legend runs that in a great 
battle against the Saxons where St. David led his people on to 
victory he caused them to wear leeks in their hats to distinguish 
them from the enemj'. Nevertheless the Welsh themselves have 
another and more humorous legend. Wales in early days was 
troubled by orang-outangs, who proved too much for the inhabit- 
ants. So they sent over iPor assistance to England. But when 
the English arrived they found it difficult to tell orang-outangs 
from their Welsh neighbors, and at last, after numerous disas- 



320 CURIOSITIES OF 

trous mistakes, asked the latter to wear a leek in their hats as a 
distinguishing mark. 

Shakespeare in his play of Henry Y., Act iv. Sc. 7, seems to 
imply that the custom originated at Orecy or Poitiers. Fluellen, 
addressing the monarch, says, — 

"Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your 
majesty, and your great uncle Edward, the plack prince of 
Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle 
here in France. 

" K Hen. They did, Fluellen. 

" Flu. Your majesty says very true : if your majesty is remem- 
bered of it, the Welshmen did goot service in a garden where 
leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps ; which, 
your majesty knows, to this hour is an honorable padge of the 
service ; and I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear 
the leek upon St. Tavy's day." 

This allusion by Fluellen to the Welsh having worn the leek in 
a battle under the Black Prince really proves nothing save that 
when Shakespeare wrote Welshmen wore leeks. In the same 
play the well-remembered Fluellen's enforcement of Pistol to 
eat the leek he had ridiculed further estabhshes the wearing as 
a common usage in Shakespeare's time. 

Is it not sufficient to hold that the leek became the national 
insignia of the Welsh because it was thei'r favorite vegetable ? 
As far back as we can trace his domestic history, Taffy and the 
leek are inseparable. Caxton's "Description of Wales" has 
these lines : 



And again : 



They have gruell to potage, 
And leekes kynde to companage. 

Atte meete, and after eke, 
Her solace is salt and leeke. 



Worlidge says, " I have seen the greater part of a garden there 
stowed with leeks, and parts of the remainder with onions and 
garlic." 

The observance of St. David's Day was long countenanced by 
royalty in England. Even economical Henry YII. could dis- 
burse two pounds "To the Walshemen towardes their feste" 
{Med. ^vi Kalend., vol. i. p. 268) in 1494, and among the house- 
hold expenses of the Princess Mary for 1544 is an entry of fif- 
teen shillings to the Yeomen of the King's Gruard for bringing a 
leek to Her Grace on St. David's Day. William III. always 
joined his Welsh subjects in wearing a leek on this day, witness 
the following paragraph in The Flying Fost, 1699 : " Yesterday 
being St. David's Day, the King, according to custom, wore a 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 321 

leek in honor of the ancient Britons, the same being presented 
to him by the sergeant-porter whose place it is, and for which he 
claims the clothes His Majesty wore that day ; the courtiers in 
imitation of His Majesty wore leeks also." 

Gilt leeks are now worn in the hat or carried in procession 
by the Welsh branches of charitable societies on the saint's day, 
and every mantel-piece in the principality is decorated with the 
genuine vegetable. 

It appears to have been at one time customary in England 
for eflSgies of Welshmen to be burned on this day. These effi- 
gies were known as Taffies. Pepys has_ the following entry in 
his Diary, under the date of March 1, 1667: "In Mark Lane 
I do observe (it being St. David's Day) the picture of a man 
dressed like a Welshman, hanging by the neck upon one of the 
poles that stand out at the top of the merchants' houses, in full 
proportion : and very handsomely done, which is one of the 
oddest sights I have seen, a good while." The custom was not 
extinct in the middle of the eighteenth century : 

But it would make a stranger laugh 

To see the English hang poor Taff : 

A pair of breeclies and a coat, 

Hat, shoes, and stockings, and what not, 

All stuifed with hay to represent 

The Cambrian hero thereby meant : 

With sword sometimes three inches broad, 

And other armor made of wood, 

They drag hur to some puhlick tree, 

And hang hur up in effigy. 

The goat has by time honored custom been attached to the 
regiment of the Eoyal Welsh (23d) Fusiliers, and the following 
extract, taken from the Graphic (No. 171, March 8, 1873), shows 
how St. David's Day is observed by the officers and men of this 
regiment : 

" The drum-major, as well as every man in the regiment, wears 
a leek in his busby ; the goat is dressed with rosettes and rib- 
bons of red and blue. The officers have a party, and the drum- 
major, accompanied by the goat, mnrches round the table after 
dinner, carrying a plate of leeks, of which he offers one to each 
officer or guest who has never eaten one before, and who is 
bound to eat it up, standing on his chair, with one foot on the 
table, while a drummer beats a roll behind his chair. All the 
toasts given are coupled with the name of St. David, nor is the 
memory of Toby Purcell forgotten. This worthy was gazetted 
major of the regiment when it was first raised, and was killed in 
the battle of the Boyne." 

21 



322 



CURIOSITIES OF 



Dead, P'estival of the (Japanese, Bon Matsuri), in Japan. 
This is celebrated fiom the 13th to the 15th of July. Foreigners 
often call it the Feast of Lanterns, from the lanterns which form 
a prominent feature in the celebration. It is believed that on 
these days the dead come back and mingle with their relations. 
Early on the morning of the 13th offerings of fruit and vegeta- 
bles are laid upon the altars in churches and the little shrines 
before which the morning and evening prayers are said in every 
believing home. Clear water is sprinkled from time to time, and 
tea is poured out every hour for the viewless visitors. So for 
three days the dead are feasted. At sunset pine torches are 
kindled to guide their steps, and lanterns are suspended over 
houses and tombs. 

On the third night the ghostly visitants are supposed to return 
to their abodes, and all the living can do is to speed ihem on 
their journey. Little boats, barely a foot in length, are launched 
on canal, river, or lake, each with a miniature lantern glowing 
at the prow and incense burning at the stern, and so they are 
allowed to float down to the sea. A recent law, however, has 
forbidden the launching of these shoryobuni, or " boats of the 
blessed ghosts," in the large seaport towns, owing to the danger 
to the shij^ping. There is some analogy both in the object of 
the feast and in the lighting of the lanterns with the Christian 
feast of All Souls. (See All Souls' Day, and Halloween.) 

Dead, Festival of the Unforgotten. (Chinese, Ching Ming 
C/iieh.) The Chinese All Souls' Day. Ancestor-worship is the 

most prominent feature of 
the Chinese religion. It 
was sanctioned by Con- 
fucius. Like the ancient 
Egyptians, the Chinese 
hold that every person has 
three souls. At death, one 
soul goes into the unseen 
world, the second remains 
with the body in the tomb, 
the third takes up its abode 
in the ancestral tablet, 
which is the holiest thing 
in the household. This tab- 
let is simply a narrow piece 
of wood, about a foot long, 
two or three inches wide, and half an inch thick, set in a low 
pedestal, and on one side are inscribed the ancestral names. The 
eldest son has charge of the tablet and its worship. It is jilaced 




Festival op the Unforgotten Dead. 
(By a Chinese artist.) 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 323 

in the main hall of the house, offerings are presented before it, 
and incense is burned to it every day. The son regards this 
tablet as in very truth the abode of a personality which is far 
more to him for weal or woe than all the gods of the empire. 
The gods are to be feared and their favor is to be propitiated ; 
but ancestors are loved and their needs in the spirit-world are 
generously supplied. Food is offered daily before the tablet, in 
order to satisfy the hunger of the spirit, while paper money, 
suits of paper clothes, and paper figures representing men- 
servants and maid-servants are burnt to ashes, — the idea being 
that thus sublimated they pass without difficulty to the souls in 
the regions of the blest. 

Twice in the year — the first time in the third month, when also, 
as we learn from the Gospels, it was customary to sweep and gar- 
nish the tombs in the neighborhood of Jerusalem, and again in 
the seventh — the males of every family of standing betake them- 
selves to the graveyards, and, having cleansed and embellished 
the tombs, offer sacrifices of food and burn paper representations 
before an altar in front of the graves. Each worshipper bows re- 
peatedly with bis head to the ground, as though in the presence of 
a deity, and brings his devotions to an end by pouring libations of 
wine over the altar and firing volleys of crackers to drive to a dis- 
tance any evil spirits that may be lurking in the neighborhood. 
But there are other evil spirits in the company of the deceased, 
who, being beyond the reach of the sound of fireworks, have to 
be propitiated. Lepers and beggars are believed to haunt the eter- 
nal regions, and, as th^se might become annoyingly clamorous if 
the offerings and presents were confined to the deceased alone, 
food, consisting of small cakes, and offerings of paper money are 
presented to them. But even these do not exhaust the unseen 
powers which have to be propitiated in order to secure the undis- 
turbed repose of the dead. '' To leave out of count the local deity 
would be almost to invite the disturbance of the genial influences 
secured by the position of the tomb. Three dishes of food, three 
cups of wine, three incense-sticks, two candles, and three packets 
of paper money are supposed to satisfy his wants, and these are 
readily offered at his shrine. When the service is over and the 
spiritual essence of the food offered has been consumed by the 
spirits, the worshippers gather round the altar and partake of 
the more material portion of the viands. This is but a prelude 
to a subsequent feast, which is held in the ancestral hall of the 
clan." (Prof. E. K. Douglass, in Good Words for January, 1895.) 

In Formosa the feast in honor of the dead was differently 
conducted. The food was tied row upon row on great cone-like 
structures of bamboo poles, from five to ten feet in diameter 
at the base, and sometimes fifty or sixty feet high. 



324 



CURIOSITIES OF 



When the spirits had consumed the spiritual part, the carnal 
became the property of a vast mob that always assembled on the 
grounds. A gong gave the signal for the latter to rush in. 
" Scarcely had the first stroke fallen," says George Leshe 
Mackay, speaking of a Seventh Moon Feast he had witnessed 
at Bang-Kah, " when that whole scene was one mass of arms 
and legs and tongues. Screaming, cursing, howling, like demons 
of the pit, they all joined in the onset. A rush was made for 
the cones, and those nearest seized the supports and pulled 
now this way, now that. The huge, heavily laden structures 
began to sway from side to side until with a crash one after 
another fell into the crowd, crushing their way to the ground. 
Then it was every man for himself. In one wild scramble, 
groaning and yelling all the while, trampling on those who had 
lost their footing or were smothered by the falling cones, fight- 
ing and tearing one another like mad dogs, they all made for 
the coveted food. It was a very bedlam, and the wildness of 
the scene was enhanced by the irregular explosion of the fire- 
crackers and the death-groan of some one worsted in the fray. 
As each secured what he could carry, he tried to extricate 
himself from the mob, holding fast to the treasures for which 
he had fought, and one of the less successful in the outskirts 
of the crowd would fain plunder him. Escaping the mob, he 
hurried to his home, expecting every moment to be attacked 
by those who thought it easier to waylay and rob the sohtary 
spoilsman than to join in the general scramble in the plain." 

These barbarities were aboUshed in 1894 by the Chinese gov- 
ernor, Lin Ming Chuan. 

December. Like the three preceding months, December de- 
rives its name from the place which it held in the old Eoman 




December. Threshing and Winnowing. 
(From an eleventh-century MS.) 

calendar, which divided the year into ten months, December 
(the tenth) being the last. The ancient Saxons called this the 
Wintermonath, or Winter Month, but after their conversion to 
Christianity they changed the name to Halig Monath, or Holy 
Month, in honor of the Christmas anniversary on the 25th. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 325 

For the same reason the modern Germans style it alternatively 
Christmonat. 

At Craig-Madden, in Stirlingshire, there is a triangular hole 
beneath the Druidic stones. Persons who crawl through this 
hole avoid the danger of dying childless. Probably these are the 
last extant survivals in the British Isles of the numerous rock- 
crevices which in the Middle Ages were held to bestow blessings 
of various sorts upon those who resolutely squeezed through 
them. 

An interesting coincidence pointed out by Forbes-Leslie and 
Miss C. F. Gordon-Cumming is that c1t*evices which superstition 
has dowered with similar attributes are not uncommon in India. 
Hindoo pilgrims from all parts of the empire throng to the tem- 
ple of Malabar Point, at Bombay, where the priests assure them 
that by squeezing through a narrow opening between two great 
rocl^s they will leave their sins behind them and wdll also insure 
having descendants to perform their funeral rites. Analogous 
also was the ancient superstition which gave a ritual value to 
all manner of perforated stones, some so large that people could 
pass through them, some so small that they were worn as amu- 
lets, or tied to the key of the stable-door to prevent the witches 
from riding the horses at night. 

Declan, St. The festival, or, as it is better known, the 
patern, of this saint is celebrated at Ardmore, Ireland, on July 
24. On that day and on the Sundays immediately preceding 
and following it, the countrj^-people flock into the village, which, 
decorated with booths and stands, has the appearance of a fair. 
The ruined church and holy well of St. Declan, half-way be- 
tween the village and Ardmore Head, are visited, as well as the 
cell near the old cathedral and round tower, said to be the 
tomb of the saint. But the most famous custom — that of pass- 
ing under the St. Declan Stone — has been discouraged by the 
Church authorities, and is now practised only by strangers. 
This holy rock stands in Ardmore Bay, whither it is said to 
have been wafted over the ocean from Eome, at the time when 
the saint was building his church, bearing on its top a large 
bell for the church tower and vestments for the saint himself 
It rests on a number of smaller stones. At low water it is not 
difiicult for men and women to pass under it by stretching 
themselves full length on face and stomach and squeezing or 
dragging through with a motion somewhat like swimming. 
Once on the other side, the devotees proceeded on bare knees 
over a number of little rocks round again to the place of 
entrance, until they had passed under the stone three times. 

St. Declan, according to the hagiologists, was the first bishop 



326 



CURIOSITIES OF 



of Ardmore in Ireland. Baptized by St. Colman, he preached 
the gospel in that country some time before the arrival of St. 
Patrick. 

/ Decoration or Memorial Day. In most of the Northern 
States of the Union May 30 is set apart by statute as a day 
for decorating the graves of the soldiers v^ho fell in the civil 
war, for holding military parades, and for listening to an oration 
by some famous orator appointed for the occasion. The origin 
of the observance was thus told by Chauncey M. Depew in a 
famous Decoration Day address made in the Metropolitan Opera- 




House in New York on May 30, 1879 : " When the war was over 
in the South, where under warmer skies and with more poetic 
temperaments symbols and emblems are better understood than 
in the practical North, the widows, mothers, and children of the 
Confederate dead went out and strewed their graves with flowers ; 
at many places the women scattered them impartially also over 
the unknown and unmarked resting-places of the Union soldiers. 
As the news of this touching tribute flashed over the North it 
roused, as nothing else could have done, national amity and love 
and allayed sectional animosity and passion. , . . Thus out of 
sorrows common alike to North and South came this beautiful 
custom." But its growth was a gradual one. There was no 
general celebration and no settled date until, in 1868, General 
John A. Logan, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the 
Republic, issued an order that on May 30 of that year every 
post, from East to West, should engage in fitting ceremonies 
and scatter tokens of respect over the resting-places of their 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 327 

comrades in arms. Later the Legislatures took up tbe matter, 
until at present (1897) it is a legal holiday in the following 
States and Territories : Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecti- 
cut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, 
Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minne- 
sota, Misssouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, 
New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsyl- 
vania, Ehode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, 
Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. In Kansas and Nevada, 
which have no statutory holidays, it is universally observed. It 
is also celebrated by Grand Army men and others on all the 
battle-fields of the South where National cemeteries have been 
established for the Federal dead. ^ 

Decoration Day is a sort of lay All Souls' Day. " Decoration 
Day," says the Illustrated American for June 21, 1890, " is not 
merely a holida}^ in the modern acceptation of the word ; it 
realizes its etymological significance as a holy day. It is our 
All Saints' Day, sacred to the memory of the glorified dead who 
consecrated themselves to their country, were baptized in blood, 
were beatified and canonized as martyrs for the right. It is 
well that, in the hurry and press of our times, when the higher 
soul within us is choked and stifled by the more sordid cares of 
the hour, by the selfish struggle for place and pelf, we should 
pause for a period to dwell upon the memory of the illustrious 
dead who gave their lives for their country, and who typifv that 
higher and truer Americanism which lies within us still, dormant 
and latent indeed, yet ready to spring again to the surface when- 
ever the needs ot the country issue a new call to arms. It is 
well that we should do them honor which honors ourselves in 
the doing. But it is well, also, that we should remember what 
was their true mission and their higher success : that they fought 
not through enmity to a gallant and mistaken foe, but through 
love for the Union, which recognized no North and no South. 
That Union they have restored, and union means peace, har- 
mony, mutual good will. If they had merely pinned together 
with bayonets the two divided sections of the country, they had 
fought and bled and fallen in vain. Northern hatred for the 
South, Southern hatred for the North, is disloyalt}^, is treason 
indeed to the Union which they re-established. A few political 
' leaders' — ' leaders' who are far in the rear of public sentiment 
— have sought to make political capital out of the lact that 
Southerners cherish the memory of the heroes who fought on 
their side, and have raised statues to commemorate them. But 
we who remember with pride the achievements of our soldiers 
are proud to acknowledge that they had foemen worthy of their 
steel, and that a common country gave birth to both. The 



328 CURIOSITIES OF 

arbitrament of the sword has settled forever the questions over 
which no other tribunal had jurisdiction, and the nation went 
through the throes of a civil war for the benefit of North and 
South alike." 

Not only is Decoration Day allied to the Christian All Souls' 
Day, but through and behind All Souls' Day to various pagan 
rituals. 

Among the Greeks and Eomans flowers were intimately asso- 
ciated with the honors paid to the dead. When a Greek died, 
the nearest female relatives assembled to perform the last offices, 
which were concluded by crowning the head with flowers. In 
addition to this, the Romans sometimes covered the couch on 
which the dead body lay with leaves and flowers. It was like- 
wise a universal custom for the relatives and friends of one just 
dead, especially if the deceased was young, to carry wreaths of 
flowers to the house or place of burial of such a one. At the Xoai^ 
the ceremon}^ at the grave, libations of milk, honey, water, and 
wine, and oiferings of flowers and olives, were made ; and after 
burial the grave was constantly crowned and adorned with 
wreaths. Moreover, the springing of flowers from the tomb 
of the dead was welcomed as an earnest of their happiness; and 
it was the universal wish that the tombstones of departed friends 
might be light to them, and that a perpetual springtide of all 
kinds of sweet flowers might encircle their graves. 

More closely analogous to the modern Decoration Day and All 
Souls' Day are the ancient Parentalia (g. y.). The Eomans were 
strict in their observance of them ; and even the hateful Cara- 
calla, when he visited Achilles' grave, laid garlands of flowers 
upon it. And when he himself died, to the great joy of his 
people, some were found who for a long time afterwards decked 
his tomb with spring and summer flowers : '• Non defuerunt, 
qui per longum tempus vernis sestivisque floribus tumulum ejus 
ornarint." And Antony dying begged to have roses scattered 
on his tomb : 

Manibus est imis rosa grata, et grata sepulchris, 
Et rosa flos florum. 

So too Ovid, writing from the land of his exile, prayed his wife, 
"But do you perform the funeral rites for me when dead, and 
offer chaplets wet with your tears. Although the fire shall have 
changed ray body into ashes, yet the sad dust will be sensible 
of your pious affection." 

Dedication Festival. The anniversarj^ of the consecration 
of a church. In Catholic countries it is observed as a feast of 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 329 

the highest rank. It must not be confounded with a patron day 
(q. v.), which is the feast of the patron saint in whose honor the 
church is dedicated. The mass and oflSce for the anniversary of 
the dedication exist by themselves, are of singular beauty, and 
have nothing to do with the patronal feast. At the time of the 
actual consecration the bishop may fix a day other than the 
actual anniversary for the feast of the dedication, in all future 
times ; but after the consecration Papal permission is required 
to change the day. 

Deisul, or Deasil. A custom, now almost extinct, but once 
very prevalent, in the Scotch Highlands. It consisted in going 
three times around a person or an object in a rightwise direction, 
— that is, keeping that person or object alwaj'S on the right side. 
This was considered, and is considered all over the world, as the 
sunwise direction. To perform the circuit in this manner was 
to bring down a blessing, to perform it in the opposite manner, 
or, as the Celtic word ran, widdershins, or withershins, was to 
invoke a curse. Witches were said to approach sacred places 
and advance towards the demons whom they served in widder- 
shins fashion. This was in opposition to what at one time must 
have been an established religious duty. — i.e., to perform all acts 
in accordance with the sun's apparent motion. It was sunwise 
that the Celts approached a consecrated place, and all their re- 
ligious processions moved in that direction. Martin in his "De- 
scription of the Western Islands of Scotland" (1703) mentions 
the common practice of carrying fires deasil or sunwise around 
persons or property in order to preserve them from any malig- 
nant influence. For the same reason boatmen rowed their boats 
round sunwise before proceeding in the direct course. To insure 
happiness in marriage the bride was conducted deasil towards 
her future spouse, and it was in the same manner that a corpse 
was conveyed to the grave or funeral pyre. On Martin's arrival 
in the island of Eona, one of the inhabitants gave him a blessing, 
at the same time going round him sunwise. Lachlan Shaw tes- 
tifies to a continuance of these ceremonies at the end of the 
eighteenth century in the Lowland district of Moray. He men- 
tions witnessing " Deas soil" processions made round the churches 
at marriages, churchings of women, and burials; as well as pro- 
cessions with lighted torches made in like manner around the 
corn-fields, in order to obtain a blessing on the crops. (History 
of Moray.) 

In short, while this custom of deisul endured among the High- 
landers there seem to have been few events in their lives at 
which it was not performed. But the most common rite was 
that whose object was to call down blessings upon an individual 



330 CURIOSITIES OF 

by making a sunwise circuit around him. Scott affords numer- 
ous instances in his novels. The old woman in " The Two 
Drovers" asks permission to " walk the deasil" around Robin 
Oig, "that you may go safe out into the foreign land, and come 
safe home." Sir Walter explains that " it consists in the person 
who made the deasil walking three times round the person who 
is the object of the ceremony, taking care to move according to 
the course of the sun." Again, he describes how the Highland 
doctor came when Waverley had been wounded : " He observed 
great ceremony in approaching Edward, and, though our hero 
was writhing with pain, would not proceed to any operation 
which might assuage it until he had perambulated his couch 
three times, moving from east to west, according to the course 
of the sun. This, which was called making the deasil, both the 
leech and his assistants seemed to consider as a matter of the 
last importance to the accomplishment of a cure." (^Waverley, 
chap, xxiv.) And in a note he adds, " To go round a person in 
the opposite direction, or withershins, is unlucky, and a sort of 
incantation." Dr. Macleod also records that when a boy in the 
Highlands the parishioners all came to his father's manse on New 
Year's Day and performed deisul round the house to bring good 
luck to the minister and his family for the ensuing year. 

Miss Constance F. Gordon-Cumming has recorded some survivals 
of the deisul rite even in our own times. One is at Kilbar, in 
the isle of Barra, where on St. Barr's Day (September 25) all 
the Eoman Catholic population attend mass in the chapel at 
Borve in honor of their titular saint, and then ride across the 
island to Kilbar, the ancient burial-place of the McNeils, where 
they march thrice round the ruins to secure luck for the island 
in the coming year. Another is at Inverness. A long hill, look- 
ing not unlike a boat turned upside down, and known as the 
Fairies' Hill, was some years ago made into a modern cemetery, 
with winding walks leading to the graves. It bo chanced that 
the turn in the principal path went sunwise, but the portion of 
the cemetery in which the poor were buried could be reached by 
a shorter cut. At first this route was taken, but it was observed 
that this path turned in the opposite direction to what is sun- 
wise, and this raised such an outcry that the poor are now taken 
by the longer way, to save them from the dire results of being 
carried " withershins" to the grave. (From the Hebrides to the 
Himalayas, vol. i. p. 210.) 

A quaint survival in the very heart of English civilization is 
that of "passing the bottle sunwise" at table, which is insisted 
upon by all good topers. Perhaps another may be found in the 
well-nigh universal gambler's habit of turning a chair or walking 
round it in order to bring about a change of luck. It may be 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 331 

noted that this turning is always sunwise. In Ireland when 
any one falls he springs up and turns about three times to the 
right. 

The custom of deisul is at least as old as the sixth century. 
William Eeeves in his " Life of St. Columba," p. clxiii, refers to 
the famous relic known as the Cathach, a copy of the Psalms in 
the saint's own handwriting, richly bound in silver and gold, and 
quotes from O'Donnell : " If it be sent thrice rightwise round 
the army when they are going to battle, they will return safe 
with victory; and it is on the breast of a coward or a cleric, 
who is to the best of his power free from mortal sin, that the 
Cathach should be, when brought round the army." This story 
takes the deisul as a rite back at least to the times of St. Co- 
lumba, and it is probably much older than that period. Mr. Wil- 
liam Simpson in his admirable book on " The Buddhist Praying- 
Wheel," to which indebtedness for most of these references is 
here acknowledged, sees a close analogy between the deisul and 
the Hindoo rite of Pradakshina, and refers both back to a common 
origin, sun-worship. 

Denis, St. (Lat. Dionysius ; It. Dionisio or Dionlgi), patron 
saint of France. His festival is celebrated on October 9. St. 
Denis is said to be the apostle of France and the first bishop of 
Paris. Among the many traditions about him it is difficult to 
arrive at any certain information. The legend which confuses 
St. Denis, Bishop of Paris in the third century, with Dionysius 
the Areopagite, is so universally represented in art that it must 
be related. Dionysius was an Athenian philosopher who went 
to Egypt to study astrology. AVhile there, it is related, he was 
much perplexed by the sudden darkening of the world which 
took place during the crucifixion. On his return to Athens 
he heard St. Paul preach, and was converted. He travelled to 
Jerusalem to visit the Virgin Mary, and in some letters he is 
said to have left an account of her death and burial. He next 
travelled to Eome, where he beheld the martyrdom of St. Paul, 
and from thence was sent by St. Clement to preach in France, 
where he made many converts. After his arrival in Paris, ac- 
cording to the legend, he was called Denis. A more probable 
account is that St. Denis came to Paris about the year 250. He 
was brought with two priests before the Eoman governor, and 
all three were beheaded. The bodies were left for wild beasts 
to devour, but legend asserts that St. Denis arose, and, taking 
his head in his hands, walked for two miles to the place now 
called Montmartre. The relics of the three martyrs were trans- 
lated to the Abbey of St. Denis in the reign of Dagobert. The 
name of St. Denis was the war-cry of the French armies, and 



332 CURIOSITIES OF 

the oriflarame, the standard of France, was consecrated at his 
tomb. His particular attribute in art is the severed head. 

Derby Day. The second and most important day of the great 
Spring Meeting at Epsom, in Surrey, England, which begins with 
the first Tuesday after Trinity Sunday. Derby Day itself thus 
always falls on Wednesday. It is then that the famous Derby 
stakes are contended for. These consist of fifty guineas each 
entry. When the first Derby was run for, there were oxAj 
thirty-six entries (with twenty-five pounds forfeit in case of 
non-starters) ; but the number of subscribers is now so large 
that the value of the stakes sometimes amounts to six thousand 
pounds. 

Epsom may lay claim to be the first of English race-courses. 
So early as 1663 Pepys records in his Diar}^ that he was pre- 
vented by an important sitting of the House of Lords from at- 
tending " some famous horse-races" on Banstead Downs, part 
and parcel of the Epsom range. This was a year or two before 
Charles II. had set about establishing the meeting at New- 
market. 

But the Derby stakes and Derby Day are of later origin. 
About the middle of the last century a certain Captain Bur- 
goyne (who afterwards, as G-eneral Burgoyne, was to surrender 
to the American forces at Saratoga) made a clandestine marriage 
with a daughter of the then Earl of Derby, which was event- 
ually recognized by the family. He purchased a little house at 
Epsom, — some say it was at the time an ale-house, — and, having 
altered and improved it, called it " The Oaks." Here he re- 
sided for some time, and eventually he sold the property to a 
relative in the person of the eleventh Earl of Derby. This noble 
lord was the one who took as his second wife the famous Miss 
Eliza Farren, known to the theatrical world as the finest Lady 
Teazle that ever stepped upon the stage. Lord Derby seems 
to have taken a fancy to Epsom, and he founded in 1779 an 
annual race, to be known as the Oaks stakes, after his resi- 
dence, and a year later the Derby stakes, which have made the 
family name famous in every part of the civilized world. 

Lord Beaconsfield, as everybody will remember, called the 
Derby stakes the Blue Ribbon of the turf To win them is to be 
for the moment the foremost man in all England. While still 
an undergraduate, Lord Eosebery announced that he had three 
ambitions, — to marr\^ the richest woman in England, to become 
prime minister, and to win the Derby. The first he achieved 
very early by his union with a daughter of the Eothschilds, 
whilst the last and culminating glory was thrust upon him at 
almost the very mon^ent that he had achieved the second. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



333 



Derby Day, in fact, is the national holiday of England. It 
comes at the very apogee of the season. The proximity of 
Epsom to London makes the Downs easily accessible. Hence 
royalty, Parliament, the aristocracy, the middle classes, and the 
mob flock thither bj^ rail and in all sorts of conveyances, from 
the four-in-hand drag to the one-horse shay. A vast stock of 
pigeon pie is baked for the occasion, and gallons of wine and 
spirits are bought and consumed. Hence the more elegant 
among sporting writers are fond of calling it the Epsom Carnival 
and the Saturnalia on the Downs. 

The scenes that characterize Derby Day before, during, and 
after the race are sufficiently amusing. The procession of con- 




Announcing the Derby Winner. 



veyances along the high-road is itself motley and various. When 
the huge crowds of pilgrims have at length arrived at the scene, 
" they find the ring a cloud of dust, a very pandemonium of 
shouts and yells. Books are opened ; heavy bets are laid ; and, 
as the satin-coated heroes of the day are led into the paddock, 
the odds chop and change about in bewildering fashion. Eoar- 
ing and pencilling go on apace ; the course is cleared ; and then, 
after the canter, the noise redoubles as the favorite is observed 
to go ' like a bird,' or ' a lion,' to step along with sweeping stride, 
or to go 'short and stilty.' Murmurs, shouts, and deep-drawn 
breaths proclaim the various false starts until the flag drops, the 
bell rings, and eyes — some bright enough, others reddened with 



334 CURIOSITIES OF 

excitement — watch the turn into the great light-green ribbon 
which stretches from Tottenham Corner to the winning-post. 
Then the shouts recommence, never to cease until the mighty 
steeds, ' clothed in thunder,' pass the winning-post. Then hats 
fly high in air, and everybody drinks, and drinks deeply, — the win- 
ners for joy, the losers to drown their grief Among the vulgar 
everybody eats also. Lobsters, chickens, and pigeon pies disap- 
pear with fearful rapidity ; cham2:)agne-corks fly aloft; and the 
gathering puts on the appearance of a gigantic picnic, continued, 
with intervals of amusements proper to the hour, till the last 
race is run and holiday London streams back to its bed. 

" Thus far all has gone merrily enough. The national holi- 
day has been a great success. Money-making and losing, eat- 
ing and drinking, — especially drinking, — have occupied at least 
a quarter of a million of people from early morning till far 
into the night. Perhaps it is as well not to remain on the 
course till the last of the flushed and excited crowd have 
driven townward, and left the downs to the nomad population, 
whose tents are pitched there for the nonce, for the spectacle 
then presented is apt to awaken other emotions than those of 
joy. As the moon rises over the grand stand, — staring over 
the deserted race-course with its empty boxes, like the ghosts 
of departed fortunes, — queer sights ma}^ be seen on the downs. 
Out of the drinking-booths, towards the wagons and the tent 
carts posted in the neighborhood, reel strange figures, carica- 
tures of humanity, hiccuping snatches of the ribald songs which 
have shocked ears polite during the day. Like the spoilers 
of the slain on the battle-field, hover other loathsome objects 
picking up eagerly the waifs and strays, the crumbs which have 
dropped from the Derby luncheon. The policeman's lantern 
turned on hedge and ditch reveals shapeless masses of pre- 
sumedly human origin crouched down in drunken sleep. It 
is better, perhaps, not to see the last of the Derby. Let us, 
therefore, hie back to town, in spite of the dust and noise, and 
observe the ' fun of the road.' Is it funny to mark the faces 
pale with fatigue or flushed with strong drink? Is there 
anything |)articularly sportive and light-hearted in the practice 
of flinging dolls and pin cushions, bags of flour, rotten eggs, or 
china dogs, at one another? Perhaps it is, if the spectator 
have taken care to drink himself up or down to the Derby 
level ; but otherwise the scene is as coarse and uninviting as a 
Dutch fair, — a fit theme for Teniers or Jan Steen. It is not 
wise to tarry by the wayside. The ' fun of the road,' if not 
ready, is rough enough in all conscience, but it is edifying 
when compared with the scenes in tavern-gardens by the road. 
As night creeps on, the most riotous members of the long pro- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 335 

cession to London wax tired of shouting and yelling, the last 
bottle of champagne is drunk, and the cold butt-end of the last 
cigar drops from parched lips into the dust of the road, un- 
heeded by the bloodshot eyes now closed in feverish slumber. 
A few case-hardened roysterers, those who have done their 
spiriting gently in the earlier part of the day, ' stay' better, and 
wake the echoes of the quiet streets, as they drive homewards, 
after a last halt at Cremorne, with shouts of laughter, and 
snatches of ' Tommy make room for your uncle.' " (^All the Year 
Bounds June 3, 1876.) 

Dervishes. It is usually said that what the monkish orders 
are to the Catholic religion the dervishes are to the Moham- 
medan. This is true in a broad and general way, but, like all 
general statements, it has its qualifications. The Catholic monks 
are under the discipline and supervision of the Church ; they 
are bound to accept its dogmas and to yield impHcit submission 
to the Pope acting through their superiors. The dervishes, on 
the other hand, hold themselves in many ways independent of 
the Sultan, and even of some doctrines of the Mohammedan 
faith. They do not recognize the legal exposition of the Koran, 
nor acknowledge the authority of any other than their spiritual 
chief, or of Allah himself speaking directly to them. They even 
set at naught the teachings of the Koran in regard to spirituous 
liquors, and during their public performances often drink wine 
or brandy to stimulate their flagging energies. 

There are other particulars, however, in which they resemble 
the. Catholic monks. They live in monasteries. They take vows 
of poverty, chastity, and obedience, although the second of these 
vows is occasionally so far relaxed as to allow certain individ- 
uals among them to go out from their monasteries and marry. 
But even the few benedicts must pass at least two nights every 
week within the convent walla. Like the mendicant friars, they 
support themselves by begging from door to door. The very 
name dervish indicates this. It comes from a Persian word 
meaning "door-sill." 

An alternative name by which they are known is Mevelavites, 
from their founder, Mevelava. This venerable gentleman flour- 
ished in the thirteenth century. He was a poet of some emi- 
nence, but was mainly distinguished for his acrobatic feats. It 
is recorded that on one memorable occasion he spun round and 
round like a sacrosanct humming-top for fourteen days at a 
stretch. No wonder that at the close of this extraordinary per- 
formance he fell into an ecstasy and had visions in which Allah 
revealed his wishes concerning the settlement of the order. The 
modern dervishes strive in their poor \\ii\Q fin-de-siecle manner 



336 CURIOSITIES OF 

to imitate their great protagonist. But the best they can do is 
to whirl around tor an hour or so every Tuesday and Friday to 
the accompaniment of flutes and tambourines. The flute is espe- 
cially esteemed by them, inasmuch as its use was sanctified by 
Jacob and other shepherds of the Old Testament. 

These bi-weekly seances are public, and constitute one of the 
" sights" to visitors in the East. Fanatical as they are, the 
people witness them with the deepest earnestness. Some years 
back a fearful tumult was raised in Cairo because in the middle 
of the spinning one of the dervishes stopped short and declared 
that a European was laughing at them. The person gifted with 
this too abundant sense of humor narrowly escaped being torn 
to pieces by the mob. 

The dervishes are divided into two classes, the whirlers, or 
dancers, and the howlers. The former are many of them persons 
of high rank. But if they do not go beyond the first stage 
they may fill all requirements by saying a few prayers at home 
and wearing for a few minutes every day the sacred white cap 
or " tag." If, however, they aim at the attainment of the full 
dignity, they must undergo a novitiate of hard labor for a thou- 
sand and one days. During this probationary period they have 
to submit to the additional indignity of being styled "jackals." 
When the term has expired the jackal emerges into a full- 
fledged Mevelavite. In token of this he receives a woollen belt, 
with its cabalistic " stone of contentment," the tag, the ear-rings 
shaped like the horseshoe of Ali, and the rosary with the ninety- 
nine names of God. 

In the public services the dancers wear high hats without a 
rim, and short skirts which stand out at right angles to their 
bodies as they whirl around upon the left heel, ring within ring, 
without touching one another, their hands outstretched, their 
eyes fixed ecstatically, all the time quietly but closely watched 
by the sheik. They keep up this extraordinary performance, 
with brief intervals of rest, for an hour. 

Meanwhile the howling dervishes are not idle. These wear 
white felt hats and long gowns encircled by a belt in which are 
two or three big stones. Over their shoulders is a mantle edged 
with green. They sway themselves backward and forward, 
either in line or a ring, shouting the name of Allah ever faster 
and louder as the music gets more uproarious, until the whole 
sounds like the baying of multitudinous hounds; then two or 
three make a dive at the bare walls, striking them again and 
again with their heads until somebody seizes the frenzied fanatics 
and lays them, just breathing, on their backs. Running daggers 
through the cheeks is still done, though rarely, but the mystery 
remains how they escape all injury, and how the butting of the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 337 

head against marble walls leaves any brains. It must be that 
the excitement sustains the system, — that fervor of feeling 
makes up for the injur}- done to the frame. 

In their daily life the dervishes practise the utmost austerities. 
They go about almost naked, and fast every Thursday from 
sunrise until sunset, besides the ordinary fast of Eamadan. 

Besides the members of the regular orders, there are many 
dervishes in the Mohammedan world who wander about and 
support themselves and even acquire considerable wealth from 
the voluntary contributions of the faithful. They cure diseases 
or drive away evil spirits by incantations, charm snakes, or per- 
form feats of legerdemain and other kinds of more or less con- 
scious imposture. 

It is in Egypt and Hindostan that the extreme degrees of 
squalor, fraud, and also of self-mortification are found among 
the peripatetic dervishes. Some spend their lives in absolute 
nakedness, their bodies smeared with wood-ash, their unkempt 
hair twisted into a turban : some roll head over heels for hun- 
dreds of miles ; some spend hours in contemplating the tips of 
their noses in eighty-four different postures. 

Discovery Day. This is celebrated on October 21 in com- 
memoration of the discovery by Columbus of the island of San 
Salvador in 1492. This was the first revelation of the existence 
of the New World to the Old. Columbus sailed from Spain on 
Friday, August 3 (Old Style), 1492, at eight o'clock in the morn- 
ing. He was in command of three ships, the Santa Maria, the 
Pinta, and the Nina, carrying in all one hundred and twenty 
men. Various discouragements attended the voyage, but on 
September 18, while bearing to the southwest, many birds were 
seen, indicating the neighborhood of land, and on October 11 a 
cane, a log of wood, a stick wrought with iron, a board, and a 
stake covered with dog-roses were fished up. At ten o'clock at 
night Columbus saw and pointed out a light ahead. At two 
o'clock on the morning of the 12th land was sighted. This 
proved to be an island, which Columbus named San Salvador. 
He landed in the morning, bearing the royal banner of Spain, 
which he planted into the soil. The above dates are all Old 
Style. To make them correspond with the modern calendar nine 
days should be added. Discovery Day is not a general holiday 
in the United States, but is celebrated locally with speeches and 
appropriate festivities. The 21st of October, 1892, however, as 
the fourth centennial of the discovery, and in recognition of the 
fact that it preluded the great World's Fair at Chicago (which 
had been postponed from the centennial year to 1893), was by 
authority of Congress recommended to the people of the United 

22 



338 CURIOSITIES OF 

States by President Benjamin Harrison in a proclamation issued 
on July 21 of that year as a day to be observed throughout 
the United States " by public demonstration and by suitable ex- 
ercises in their schools and other places of assembly." The 
proclamation was honored in nearly every State, and the day 
was kept as a general holiday. The Board of Managers of the 
World's Fair dedicated their buildings on that day. But the 
New York celebration had been already fixed for the 12th, and 
this could not be changed without calling an extra session of the 
Legislature. Hence New York's celebration preceded that of 
the rest of the nation. 

Distaff's Day, St., or Rock Day. This name was in an- 
cient England given to the 7th of January, which, following as 
it did Twelfth Night, or Epiphany, the conclusion of the Christ- 
mas season, was the date at which women were expected to re- 
sume the rock or distaff, as well as other household duties. The 
hired men postponed their definitive resumption of work until 
Plough Monday {q. v.), the first Monday after Twelfth Night, 
which frequently left a lee-way of several days, in which they 
amused themselves by playing pranks upon the maids, such as 
setting their flax or tow a-burning. In requital, the maids 
soused the men from the water-pails. 

Partly work and partly play 
You must on St. Distaff's Day. 
From the plough soon free the team, 
Then come home and fother them ; 
Bring in pails of water then, 
Let the maids bewash the men. 
Give St. Distaff all the right : 
Then bid Christmas sport good-night, 
And next morrow every one 
To his own vocation. 

Doed-Koecks. (Dutch, meaning literally " dead-cakes.") A 
sort of cookies served in old New York to the attendants at 
funerals. Alice Morse Earle, in " Colonial Days in Old New York," 
cites an old receipt for their manufacture : " Fourteen pounds 
of flour, six pounds of sugar, five pounds of butter, one quart 
of water, two teaspoon fuls of pearlash, two teaspoonfuls of 
salt, one ounce of caraway seed. Cut in thick slices four 
inches in diameter." Sometimes the cakes were marked with 
the initials of the deceased. Friends and acquaintances fre- 
quently carried them home to retain them for years as memen- 
tos of the occasion. In Albany, a well-known bakery made a 
specialty of these cakes ; but they were frequently of domestic 
manufacture. Families of extra good breeding sometimes sent 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 339 

a couple of the cakes, with a bottle of wine and a pair of gloves, 
as a summons to the funeral. 

Burial-cakes were not unknown in England, and, indeed, they 
are still baked in Lincolnshire and Cumberland, to be served at 
funerals. So late as 1748 they are advertised by a Philadelphia 
baker. 

Dog- Days. According to the ordinary computation, these 
begin on July 3 and continue to August 11. They derive their 
name from the heliacal rising and setting of Sirius, the dog-star, 
and properly should be made to conform thereto in the calendar. 

The heliacal rising means the time when the star, after being 
practically in conjunction with the sun and invisible, emerges 
from the light so as to be visible in the morning before sunrise. 

We must" look to Egypt for the origin of the observance of these 
days. The rising of Tayout, Sihor, or Sirius coincided in ancient 
times with the summer solstice and the overflowing of the Nile ; 
and, as the latter was the source of the fertility of Egypt, the 
period was regarded as sacred, and the influence of the dog-star 
was deemed peculiarly auspicious. The superstitious feelings gen- 
erated in Egypt with regard to the dog-days gradually spread 
throughout the world, and made themselves felt like many other 
ancient superstitions. But, while the rising of the dog star was 
the harbinger of plenty and prosperity to the Egyptian, it was 
just the reverse to the Roman, who looked upon the dog-days as 
unfortunate and even prejudicial to life, coming as they did in 
the most unhealthy period of the year. The dog-days are still 
talked about, not only in Europe [but in America; but it does 
not require Gassendi's grave argument to convince people that 
the dog-star cannot possibly exercise any good or bad influence 
upon the earth. Popular prejudices linger a long time even after 
light has begun to break. To this day many sensible persons 
believe that the weather is affected by the moon, and that equi- 
noctial storms attend the sun's imaginary passage across an 
imaginary line. Yet the fixed stars combined do affect the earth. 
They are original sources of light and heat ; their force is iden- 
tical with that of the sun, and they daguerrotype themselves. 
Without the additional heat furnished by the fixed stars the sun 
would not render the earth habitable. Sirius is a sun superior to 
Sol himself; but, individually, he can but give a name to the 
dog-days. 

Doggett's Coat and Badge. A trophy annually rowed for, 
August 1, on the Thames between London Bridge and Chelsea, 
against the tide, by six young watermen whose apprenticeship 
comes to an end on that day. The trophy is provided out of a 



340 CURIOSITIES OF 

fund left for the purpose by Thomas Doggett (1670-1721), a 
famous comedian and zealous Whig, to commemorate " the happy 
accession to the throne" of George I. on August 1, 1714. The 
first race was run in 1716. 

Colley Gibber describes Doggett as a most original actor. He 
borrowed from none, though he was imitated by many. He 
was, in stage parlance, an excellent dresser; the least article of 
whatever habit he wore seemed in some degree to speak and 
mark the special humor he represented at the time. He could 
with great exactness paint his face to resemble any age, from 
manhood to extreme senility, which led Sir Godfrey Kneller to 
say that Doggett excelled him in his own art ; for he could only 
copy nature from the original before him, while the actor could 
vary his face at will and yet always preserve a true resem- 
blance. 

Doggett wrote one comedy, " The Country Wake," 1696, 4to, 
in which he played the leading character; and Steele, in the 
Spectator, JS'o. 502, pays this high tribute to the excellence of the 
performance : " There is something so miraculously pleasant in 
Doggett's acting the awkward triumph and comic sorrow of 
Meb, in different circumstances, that I shall not be able to stay 
away whenever it is acted." And from the Spectator, No. 446, 
by Addison, we gather that Doggett excelled in grave or elderly 
men, knights and baronets, country squires, and justices of the 
quorum. Congreve was a great admirer of Doggett, and wrote 
for him the characters of Fondlewife in " The Old Bachelor" and 
Ben the Sailor in " Love for Love ;" the latter the earliest humor- 
ous and natural personation of the English sailor on our stage. 

Doggett grew rich, and became a member of the Fishmongers' 
Company. He died September 22, 1721, at Eltham, in Kent, 
where his remains are interred. He had continued to give the 
coat-and-badge prize yearly ; and he bequeathed a sum of monej-, 
the interest of which was to be appropriated to the same pur- 
pose annually forever on August 1 ; and, with the minute atten- 
tion to costume which distinguished him as an actor as well as 
in political principle, he directed that the color of the coat should 
be orange, and the White Horse of Hanover badge should be 
adhered to. The Fishmongers' Company have very properly 
taken charge of the bequest. They view the boats to be rowed 
a short time previous to August 1, when they hold a court to 
start the watermen ; and the coat and badge are presented to 
the winner after a banquet given at Fishmongers' Hall in the 
evening. The Company have also added four money prizes. 
Incidentally, by providing a well-equipped and fully provis- 
ioned steamer to follow the race, it keeps alive the interest of 
the public, or of a part of it, in the pleasantest possible manner, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 341 

and each year the race makes an agreeable little stir in the 
thronged waterway from the Pool to Pimlico. 

Thus has the old comedian had his memory kept green by the 
annual rowing for the Coat and Badge ; the Hanoverian suc- 
cession may have been commemorated by observances more 
pretentious than the river prize, but certainly not with more sin- 
cerity. In the water-side parishes the name of Doggett became 
a sort of household word; and some fifteen years after the 
player's decease there were written upon a window-pane in a 
house at Lambeth the following lines : 

; Tom Doggett, the greatest sly droll in his parts, 
In acting was certain a master of arts ; 
A monument left, — no herald is fuller, — 
His praise is sung yearly by many a sculler. 
Ten thousand years hence, if the world lasts so long, 
Tom Doggett will still be the theme of their song, 
When old Noll with great Louis and Bourbon are forgot, 
And when numberless kings in oblivion shall rot. 

Dog- Whip Day. A curious custom of whipping dogs on 
certain anniversaries has existed in many parts of England. In 
York the occasion used to be St. Luke's Day (October 18), hence 
kno\yn as Dog- Whip Day, when school-boys took delight in 
thrashing all dogs that were found on the streets. Tradition 
explains that once in Catholic days a priest accidentally dropped 
the eucharist while celebrating mass on this festival. It was 
snapped up and eaten by a dog. The dog was promptly killed, 
and all its brethren were doomed to a periodical flagellation in 
memory of the sacrilege. The same custom also existed at 
Manchester on the first day of Acres Fair, which was held about 
the same time. In Hull the 10th of October was selected. 
Every boy procured a whip for the unlucky dogs found running 
in the streets. This custom dates back to the fairs which were 
formerly held on October 11 in Hull. The good monks in. the 
monasteries were wont to provide liberally for the poor way- 
farers who tramped it to the fair. On one occasion, on the eve 
of the fair, a dog found its way into the monasterial larder and 
made off with a good-sized joint. But he was intercepted by 
a crowd of suppliants at the gate, who beat him soundly and 
rescued the meat. Hence it grew to be the custom to beat off 
any dog who appeared in the streets on the day before the fair, 
and the custom survived among the boys of Hull until the advent 
of the new police. 

Dog-Whippers. Church officials who in mediaeval times 
went about during the time of public worship to drive out any 
stray dogs that might have happened within the church, and 



342 CURIOSITIES OF 

also incidentally to keep the congregation awake. The 
whipper was especially useful in the rural districts, where the 
parish was extensive, and some of the worshippers from solitary 
farm-houses, living miles away from the church, would bring 
their dogs with them to the Sunday services. So long as the 
dog crouched under his master's seat he was allowed to remain 
undisturbed, but if he entered into any altercation with his 
fellows, the dog-whipper bore down upon the canine rioters and 
reduced them to silence. In city churches dogs were not al- 
lowed at all. The dog-whipper's usual instrument consisted of 
a long ash stick to which was fastened a thong of leather three 
feet long. But he often combined with this duty that of slug- 
gard-waking, and for that purpose was armed with a rousing- 
stick (q. v.). Not a few people in bygone ages felt it a duty to 
leave part of their worldly wealth to pay dog-whippers and slug- 
gard- wakers. At Claverley, Shropshire, one Eichard Dovey, in 
the year 1659, left certain property near the church on condition 
that eight shillings per year be paid out of the rent to a poor 
man to awaken sleepers in the church and to drive out dogs. 
At Chislet, Kent, is a piece of land known as " Dog-Whipper's 
Marsh," from which a payment of ten shillings a year was to be 
devoted to paying for the services of keeping order in the church 
during the time of public worship. Other instances may be 
found in Andrews's " Curiosities of th© Church," p. 173. 

The Antiquary for August, 1886, has the following note: 
"Amongst the officials of Exeter Cathedral, until a few years 
ago, was the dog-whipper, whose duty was to keej) dogs out of 
the building. On his death the office, having become a sinecure, 
was abolished. His widow has since been employed as care- 
taker at the prebendal house in the cloisters, but was a few days 
ago provided with one of the Dingham free cottages, of which 
charity the dean is a leading trustee. The office of dog-whipper 
formerly existed in many large churches, but the late function- 
ary at Exeter Cathedral was the last survivor of his order." 

Dole. This word comes from the same root as the verb "to 
deal." and means a portion of money, food, or other things 
dealt out in charity. In early Christian times, as St. Chrysostom 
assures us, " doles were used at funerals to procure the rest of the 
soul of the deceased, that he might find his judge propitious." 
In time the amount and quantity of such doles came to be spe- 
cially described and appointed in the will of the dying person. 
At first these were distributed among the actual attendants at 
the funeral. Thus, in 1399, Eleanor, Duchess of Grioucester, ap- 
pointed that fifteen poor men should bear torches at her funeral, 
" each having a gown and hood lined with white, breeches of blue 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 343 

cloth, shoes, and a shirt, and twenty pounds amongst them." 
Again, in 1428, Thomas, Lord Poyning, prescribed that twelve 
poor men should bear torches at his funeral, and each was to 
receive a gown of black cloth and twelve pence in money ; and 
in 1423 twenty-eight poor men who attended the funeral of 
Andrew, Lord Windsor, were rewarded with a frieze gown and 
sixpence each. 

Later doles were appointed to be sent to the homes of the 
inhabitants of the village in which the donor had died. The 
practice was sometimes to bequeath it by will, but, w^hether so 
specified or not, the ceremony was seldom omitted. A small loaf 
was sent to every person, without any distinction of age or 
circumstances, and not to receive it was a mark of particular 
disrespect. 

The final evolution of this custom came in the custom of leav- 
ing money or lands the interest or rent of which was annually 
to be devoted to some form of charity, usually, but not always, 
at the tomb or in the church where the donor was buried. Thus, 
William Eobinson, who died at Hull on October 8, 1708, left 
sufficient money to purchase a dozen loaves of bread, costing a 
shilling each, to be given to twelve poor widows at his grave 
every Christmas Lay. In the churchyard of Kildale, Yorkshire, 
is a tomb bearing the following inscription : " Here lyeth the 
body of Joseph Lunn, who dj^ed ye 10th day of March 1716 aged 
82 years. He left to ye poor of Kildale xx.s. ; of Commondale 
XX s. ; of Lanby xx.s. ; of Westerdale xx.s. to be paid upon his 
gravestone by equal portions on ye Ist May and ye 11th Novem- 
ber for ever." 

Lenten doles were frequent in the Catholic past. John Thake, 
in a will drawn up in 1537, left his property with the condition 
that a barrel of white herrings and a cade of red herrings be 
given to the poor of Clavering, Essex, to help them tide over the 
austerities of the fast. Similar bequests were left by Eichard 
Stevenson, of Dronfield, Derbyshire, and David Salter, of Farnham 
Eoyal, Bucks, the latter adding the annual sum of two shillings 
to be laid out in the purchase of a pair of kid gloves for the par- 
son on the first Sunday in Lent. 

Every year in the crypt beneath St. Peter's Church, Walworth, 
London, a Christmas dinner is given to three hundred poor peo- 
ple of the district. No one may be invited who is under sixty 
years of age, and both sexes are eligible for the treat. The dark, 
arched crypt of a London church is a curious place for a Christ- 
mas feast, but by means of holly, evergreen, bunting, and a good 
supply of lamps the place is made to look pleasant and cheery. 
Tables are arranged up and down under the arches, and on these 
a plentiful supply of roast beef, plum pudding, and other Christ- 



344 CURIOSITIES OF 

mas fare is placed. The dinner is unique in that it is cooked 
in the church. 

There is an ancient payment made by the chamberlain of the 
corporation of Stafford of an annual sum of money, generally 
six shillings, at Christmas, for the purchasing of plums, to be 
distributed among the inhabitants of certain old houses in the 
liberty- of Forebridge. The origin of this payment is ascribed 
by general reputation to the bounty of some individual who 
heard from some poor children a complaint on Christmas Day 
that they had no plums for a pudding ; and it is reported that 
he counted the houses then in the place and made provision for 
the supply of a pound of plums for each house. The money 
received is laid out in plums, which are divided into equal quan- 
tities, and made up into parcels, one for each of the houses, 
fifteen or sixteen in number, entitled b}^ the established usage 
to receive a portion, without reference to the circumstances of 
the inhabitants. {Old English Customs and Charities^ p. 5.) 

Peter Symonds, a London mercer, by his will, dated 1586, left a 
sum of money for a sermon to be preached on Good Friday in the 
church of All-Hallows, Lombard Street, at the close whereof sixty 
scholars of Christ's Hospital are to be presented with a bunch 
of raisins and a bright penny. He further left property for pur- 
chasing sixty loaves of bread to be given on Whitsunday to poor 
persons on his grave in Liverpool Street. The railway now 
covers the site of his tomb, and the bread is distributed in front 
of the school-room in Bishopsgate churchyard. Symonds like- 
wise left several charities to his natal city of Winchester, and 
directed that " Leave was to be obtained from the bishop or the 
dean to place his picture in the body of the cathedral, with a 
small table before it, on which were to be placed twelve penny 
loaves of good wheaten bread, which immediately after the ser- 
vice were to be given to twelve poor persons at the will of the 
mayor, except on one Sunday, in each quarter, when the bishop 
or dean was to nominate the recipients." 

A pilgrim's dole of bread and ale is offered to all wayfarers at 
the Hospital of St. Cross at Winchester. Thk is said to have 
been established by William of Wykeham. (Emerson when in 
England paid a visit to the hospital, claimed and received the 
victuals, and cited the incident as a curious proof of the stability 
of English institutions. 

The washing of Molly Grime was the object of a curious be- 
quest whose conditions were observed until 1832. Molly Grime 
was the current name for a tomb in the parish church of Glen- 
tham, Lincolnshire. Seven old maids of the parish received 
annually a small sum for washing this tomb with water brought 
annually from Newell Well. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 345 

A notable charity left by Eobert Dove in 1705, and still in 
the custody of the vicar of St. Sepulchre's Church in London, 
directed that a bell shall be tolled previous to every execution at 
Newgate. 

The sexton appeared in Newgate at midnight on the eve of 
the execution to deliver the following cheerful and beautiful 
exhortation : 

fYe prisoners that are within 
For your wickedness and sin, 
Watch all and pray ; the hour is drawing near. 
That ye hefore the Almighty must appear. 
Examine well yourselves, in time repent, 
That you may not to eternal flames he sent. 
And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls, 
The Lord above have mercy on your souls. 

Doubtless Mr. Dove was the author of this literary gem, and 
deemed that his legacy of fifty pounds bought a cheap immor- 
tality for them. 

During the days of slavery doles were frequently left whose 
interest was to be expended in the redemption of English slaves. 
The Belton charity, and the Alicia, Duchess Dudley's bequest, 
are the most famous of them. Both are now diverted to other 
uses. 

Money has frequently been left for the benefit of servant- 
maids, the interest to be thrown for with dice by a certain num- 
ber of selected candidates. This was the method adopted at 
Guildford according to the will of John How, made in 1674, and 
at Eeading, under the wills of John Kendrick and John Bla- 
grave. The throwing of dice has, however, now been discon- 
tinued. 

One of the strangest of strange bequests is that of John Knill, 
who died in 1811 and had a building called Knill's Mausoleum 
erected near St. Ives. He left sundry bequests of a useful 
nature, but ordered that every five years five pounds should be 
divided among the girls, not exceeding ten years of age, who 
should between ten and twelve o'clock in the forenoon of St. 
James's Day dance for a quarter of an hour at least on the 
ground near the mausoleum, and after the dance sing Psalm C. 
of the old version to "the fine old tune" to which the same was 
then sung in St. Ives Church. He provided also white ribbons 
for breast-knots for the girls and a cockade for the fiddler, and 
gave other evidences of vanity and eccentricity. 

Charities have been founded and still exist for the preaching 
of sermons on the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the discovery 
of the Gunpowder Plot, the victories of Nelson at the Nile and 



346 CURIOSITIES OF 

Trafalgar, the victories of Wellington, the commemoration of 
tlie accession of George lY., and other national events. There 
are also bequests for the encouragement of matrimony and 
horse racing, providing portions for poor maids, catechising chil- 
dren, buying Bibles, for repeating the Lord's Prayer, Apostles' 
Creed, and Ten Commandments, strewing the church with 
rushes, to awaken sleepers and whip dogs out of church, to 
dress graves with flowers, to plant rose-trees in churchyards, to 
promote peace and good will among neighbors, and to achieve 
many other desirable and excellent objects. 

Figs and ale were provided for the poor scholars of the Free 
School in Giggleswick on St. Gregory's Day by the will of Wil- 
liam Clapham in 1603, and at Harlington, Middlesex, the ringers 
received a leg of pork for ringing on November 5. White peas, 
rye, oatmeal, malt, barley, appear in other bequests. A small 
piece of land, called Petticoat Hole, at Stockton, Yorkshire, is 
held subject to an ancient custom of providing a petticoat for 
a poor woman of Stockton. In the same county there is an 
ancient payment of three shillings fourpence as the value of a 
pound of pepper due from the occupier of a farm at Yapham 
foi- taking care of the parson's horse, which he is bound to do 
whenever the parson goes there to do duty. 

The most famous dole in the United States is that which is 
designated in the register of Trinity Church, New York, as the 
"Leake Dole of Bread." John Leake was a millionaire and 
philanthropist who in 1792 left one thousand pounds to Trinity 
Church "to be laid out, in the annual income, in sixpenny 
wheaten loaves of bread and distributed every Sabbath morning 
after divine service, to such poor as shall appear most deserving." 
The wish has been faithfully carried out, with one exception. 
About 1855 the distribution station was transferred from Trinity 
Church to the vestibule of old St. John's at 46 Yarick Street, 
and the weekly day of distribution from Sunday to Saturday 
Every Saturday morning, between seven and eight o'clock, sixty- 
seven loaves are distributed. 

Dolls, Festival of. (Japanese, Hina-no-Sekku.) A Japanese 
festival, specially dedicated to girls, and celebrated on the third 
day of the third month, which in our calendar may correspond 
with the middle or last day of April. As the sakura-trees, 
which are somewhat similar to our peach-trees, burst into bloom 
at this period, Europeans have named this the festival of peach- 
flowers. On this day girls and women array themselves in holi- 
day attire. The mothers adorn the chamber of state with blos- 
soming sakura boughs, and arrange therein an exhibition of all 
the dolls which their daughters have received. The children 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 347 

prepare a banquet for them, which is eaten by the grown folks 
in the evening after the dolls are supposed to have had a surfeit. 

Dominic, St. (It. Domenico ; Fr. Dominique; Sp. Domingo)^ 
founder of the order of Dominicans, or Preaching Friars. His 
festival is celebrated August 4. St. Dominic was born in 1170 
at Calahorra in Old Castile. He was of noble parentage. At 
his baptism, legend says, a star descended from heaven to 
crown his brow. He studied at Yalencia, and joined the order 
of St. Augustine at an early age. He went to France and 
preached against the Albigenses, making many converts. It 
was in consequence of the danger which seemed to threaten the 
Church that St. Dominic founded a religious order whose chief 
business it should be to preach the gospel, convert heretics, and 
defend and disseminate the faith. This is known as the order 
of Dominicans. In 1218 St. Dominic was commissioned by the 
Pope to reform the nunneries at Eome. He made a new rule, 
which was adopted, and from this originated the order of 
Dominican nuns. He died at Bologna in 1221, and was canon- 
ized by Gregory IX. in 1234. Legend says that his portrait was 
brought from heaven by St. Catherine and Mary Magdalene to a 
convent of Dominican nuns. His remains lie at Bologna in a 
splendid shrine in the church of his order. Legends attribute 
many miracles to him. It is related that once when at the 
monastery of St. Sabina in Eome there was not sufficient food. 
St. Dominic made all the brothers sit at the table, and blessed 
what food there was ; immediately two angels appeared, bring- 
ing bread and wine. His attributes in art are a dog by his side, 
a star on or above his head, a lily in one hand, and a book in the 
other. 

Doorga, Festival of. One of the greatest of Hindoo poojahs, 
or feasts. Doorga is the name under which the goddess Kali is 
worshipped as the female principle in creation. Her special fes- 
tival in autumn consists of three days of great rejoicing wound up 
by one of ceremonial lamentation. All business is suspended 
throughout India, the houses of the wealthy Hindoos are at night 
splendidly illuminated and thrown open to visitors of all kinds, and 
numerous buifaloes, sheep, goats, and other animals are sacrificed 
in the temples ; and after all the animals have been slain the mul- 
titude daub their bodies with the mud and gore, and indulge in 
bacchanalian and lascivious dances. For Doorga is then believed 
to be married, and these dances are meant to entice her to the 
propagation of children, who are to fight with and overcome 
the evil spirits who injure mankind. An image of the god- 
dess made of straw and clay and profusely decorated is the 



348 . CURIOSITIES OF 

centre of all the worship. It is supposed to be animated by the 
divine spirit until the fourth day, when nothing remains but to 
consign it to some sacred river or lake. Borne on the shoulders 
of stout porters, the idol is paraded through the streets with 
great pomp. The neighborhood resounds with music and sing- 
ing. The acclamations of the worshippers are heard above the 
din. xit length, arrived at the water, the image with all its 
trappings and tinsel ornaments is cast into the waters, the poor 
subsequently vying with one another in rifling the goddess of 
her decorations. On returning from the immersion the priest 
sprinkles the votaries with holy water and offers them his bene- 
dictions. They embrace with enthusiasm, and usually wind up 
the festivities with draughts of a solution of hemp leaves, which 
produces a slight intoxication. 

Dough-Day. (From <iow^/i, a slang term for money.) A semi- 
humorous name applied in New York and other States of the 
Union to the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of the second 
week before election. These were the days for the distribution 
of campaign funds from head-quarters to the workers in every 
county. IJntil that time the rural leaders lived and worked on 
expectations. On the appointed days they swarmed down from 
the counties, each with a gripsack, to carry back the cash for 
rewards to the faithful. 

The word " money" has always been carefully avoided by 
shrewd leaders. It has a bad sound to the public, they say. 
Some unknown politician adopted the word " dough" as meaning 
campaign cash, and it stuck. From it grew the appellation of 
•'bake-shop" for the treasurer's office, and "dough-day" for the 
welcome time of distribution. 

The general adoption of the Australian or secret ballot system 
has done away with Dough-Day, because it has restricted the 
possibilities of bribery, to which purpose the " dough" was 
chiefly applied. 

Dragon-Boats, Feast of. The story runs that in about the 
fourth century before Christ one Ku-Yuan, minister of the State 
of Tsu, was disgraced and deposed on account of his virtuous 
persistence in pointing out the evil doings of his master. There- 
upon he published a poetical lament in which he reiterated his 
charges, and forthwith drowned himself in the Milo Eiver, de- 
spite the efforts of an eye-witness, a fisherman, who launched 
his boat to save him. Ever since on the anniversary of the 
suicide the fisherman's attempt at rescue has been commemorated 
by a procession of dragon-boats over the inland waters of China. 
Each of these boats is owned by a clan, and the occasion has 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



349 




Feast of Dragon-Boats. 
(By a Chinese artist.) 



now become the excuse for a boatmen's holiday. The proces- 
sions of the past have developed into races between rival clans. 
The boats, which are from fifty to a hundred feet long, are built 
more or less in the form of 
dragons. The rowers may 
number between fifty and 
sixty, and they are timed 
by a drummer in the cen- 
tre, who beats his instru- 
ment faster and faster as 
the fun grows furious. In 
the bow stands a man who 
with one hand waves a flag 
while with the other he 
goes through the dumb 
show of casting rice upon 
the waves as a method of 
appeasing the evil spirits 
who would otherwise wreak 
their malevolence upon a 
drowning man. Sometimes prizes are awarded to the winners ; 
but the decisions of the judges in close cases often create more 
tumult and quarrelling than even those of the American base- 
ball umpire. 

Ducking- Stool. An instrument for the punishment of scolds 
and other unquiet women. It was much in use among the chi- 
valric inhabitants of Great Britain, and occasionally in other 
countries of Europe, during the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies, and had a sporadic survival even into the nineteenth. 
There were two kinds of ducking-stools. One was merely a 
strong chair into which the offender was securely fastened 
and then exposed at her own door or in some public place, as 
the market or the town gates. The other and more popular 
was a chair afiixed to the end of a plank or depending from a 
cross-beam, and was used for ducking the culprit in a contiguous 
pond or stream. The exact antiquity of this method of correc- 
tion, as well as its origin, whether in England or on the Con- 
tinent, is uncertain. But it undoubtedly dates from Anglo-Saxon 
times, as it is mentioned in the Doomsday Survey in the account 
of the city of Chester. So late as 1809 Jenny Pipes was carried 
about Leominster in a ducking-stool and then immersed in the 
Lug, near Kenwater Bridge, at the instance of the magistrates. 
Sarah Leeke of the same town would have been served similarly 
in 1817 if the river had not just then been too low, luckily 
for her. These are the latest instances on record. Though 



350 CURIOSITIES OF 

usually consecrated to the correction of shrews, the ducking- 
stool was occasionally occupied by brewers ot undrinkable beer, 
bakers of bad bread, and millers who pilfered wheat. That its 
use sometimes proved fatal is not to be wondered at. In 1731 
its remedial efficacy was tried, by order of the mayor of Not- 
tingham, on a courtesan of that place, with the result that she 
died soon afterwards. A chap-book of uncertain date tells its 
story on the title-page: "Strange and Wonderful Eelation of 
the Old Woman who was drowned at Eatcliff Highway a fort- 
night ago." 

There is an old tradition of a Gloucestershire scold whose 
obstinate disposition defied the ducking-stool. 

After the first sousing in the village horse-pond, her husband 
exclaimed, " Molly ! Molly ! Woot thee promise I never to scold 
at I again ?" 

As soon as Molly recovered her breath, she replied in a thun- 
dering voice of moroseness, "No, I won't do nothing o' th' 
zort !" 

Molly had another souse, and the husband met with the same 
acrimonious response to his anxious interrogations. The sous- 
ing was repeated ; but Molly continued to be obdurate and con- 
tumacious. 

" You may drown I," shouted Molly, " but I wool never give in." 

They did not run the risk of drowning Molly, but released 
her, for the husband was convinced that she would "rather 
drown than refuse to wag her red rag at un" whenever she felt 
incHned to do so. It did not cure Molly. She became as great 
a scold as ever she had been before her pubHc sousing. 

Some years after that critical punishment, the lord of the 
manor met John at a court-leet, and inquired, " Well, John, bow 
does Molly get on now with her scolding?" 

" Oh, squire, her be pretty nearly cured on't." 

"Did the ducking-stool do that business?" 

" Oh, no ; I let her jaw on as long as her liked. I ged her no 
back answers. I zot quiet and blowed me bacca, and her soon 
dropt her scolding and be now as good a woman as they be 
made." 

Dumb-Cake. A cake famous in English folk-lore whose con- 
stituents may vary with different seasons, so long as the essen- 
tial of perfect silence during the making and the baking be main- 
tained. Thus prepared, it is invaluable for matrimonial divina- 
tions. Its greatest efficacy is on Halloween, St. John's Eve, and 
St. Faith's Eve, but it also has been put to a successful test on the 
eves of St. Agnes, St. Valentine, and St. Mark. The Halloween 
cake is generally made of an eggshell- full of salt, an eggshell- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 351 

full of wheat meal, and an eggshell-full of barley meal. Any 
number of young women may join in the concoction. The meal 
must be made into a dough without the aid of spring water. 
Every one of the comjDany rolls it up, and spreads it thin and 
broad, and then, at some distance from the others, marks the 
initials of her name with a large new pin towards the end of the 
cake. The cake is then set before the fire, and each person sits 
down in a chair as far distant from the fire as the room will ad- 
mit, not speaking a single word all the time. This must be done 
soon after eleven at night; and between that and twelve o'clock 
each person must turn the cake once, and in a few minutes after 
the clock strikes twelve the husband of her who is first to be 
married will appear, and lay his hand on that part of the cake 
which is marked with her name. Silence must be strictly pre- 
served throughout this operation. 

The eating of the dumb-cake on St. Mark's Eve as practised in 
Northamptonshire is attended with all sorts of somnolent results. 
The number of the party never exceeds three; they meet in 
silence to make the cake, and as soon as the clock strikes twelve 
they each break a portion off to eat, and when done they walk 
up to bed backward without speaking a word, for if one speaks 
the spell is broken. Those that are to be married see the likeness 
of their sweethearts hurrying after them, as^if wishing to catch 
them befpi^e they get into bed ; but the maids being apprised of 
this beforehand (by the cautions of old women who have tried 
it) take care to unpin their clothes before they start, and are 
readj^ to slip into bed before they are caught by the pursuing 
shadow. If nothing is seen, the desired token may be a knock- 
ing at the doors, or a rustling in the house, as soon as they have 
retired. To be convinced that it comes from nothing else but 
the desired cause, they are always particular in turning out the 
cats and dogs before the ceremony begins. Those that are to die 
unmarried neither see nor hear anything; but they have terrible 
dreams, which are sure to be of newly-made graves, winding- 
sheets, and churchyards, and of rings that will fit no finger, or 
which, if they do, crumble into dust as soon as put on. There is 
another dumb ceremony, of eating the yolk of an Qgg in silence 
and then filling the shell with salt, when the sweetheart is sure 
to make his visit in some way or other before morning. (^Every 
Day Book, vol. i. p. 523.) 

On St. John's Eve, likewise, the party of girls must number 
three, and absolute silence must prevail through the whole of 
the operation. 

Two make it, 
Two bake it, 
Two break it. 



352 CURIOSITIES OF 

At midnight each maid eats a portion of the cake and takes a 
portion in her hand, walks to bed backward, and sleeps with the 
dumb cake under her pillow. Of course she sees plainly in her 
dreams her future husband. On St. Faith's Day, though the 
number of participants is the same, the custom somewhat varies ; 
the cake must be made of spring water, flour, sugar, and salt. 
The cake must be turned three times by each person during the 
baking. It is then divided into long strips and passed three 
times through a wedding-ring borrowed from a woman who has 
been married at least seven years. All this in silence ; but as the 
husband-hunter eats her dumb-cake she says, — 



And bring to me my heart's delight, 
Let me my future husband view, 
And be my vision chaste and true. 

Then all three maids get into bed together, with the wedding- 
ring tied to the head of the bed. Three widows can also try 
this charm. 

In the " Journal of the Young Lady of Yirginia" we find the 
gay group of young Southern beauties, with much fear and 
trembling, eating the " dum-cake" in Mr. Washington's house. 

Dunmow Flitch. At the church of Dunmow, in Essex 
County, England, a flitch of bacon used to be given to any mar- 
ried couple who after a twelvemonth of matrimony would come 
forward and make oath that during that time they had lived in 
perfect harmony and fidelity. The origin of the custom is lost 
in the mists of antiquity. By some it is dubiously referred to 
Eobert Fitzwalter, a favorite of King John, who revived the 
Dunmow Priory at the beginning of the thirteenth century ; but 
it seems quite as likely that the good fathers themselves, re- 
joicing in their celibacy, instituted the custom as a jest upon 
their less fortunate fellows. The earliest recorded case of the 
awarding of the flitch is in 1445, when Eichard Wright, of 
Bradbury, Norfolk, a laborer, claimed and obtained it. But 
that there had been earlier cases of similar success is clearl}^ evi- 
denced by many references in early English literature, the first 
being in the " Vision of Piers Plowman," about 1362. 

The passage, translated from its primitive tongue, reads, — 

; Many a couple since the Pestilence 
■ Have plighted them together ; 

The fruit that they bring forth 

Is foul words, 

In jealousy without happiness, 

And quarrelling in bed ; 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 353 

They have no children but strife, 
And slapping between them ; 
And though they go to Dunmow 
(Unless the devil help !) 
To follow after the Flitch, 
They never obtain it ; 
CAnd unless they both are perjured, 
They lose the Bacon. 

Though it is clear from this that both husband and wife had to 
take the oath, antiquaries hold that during the fifteenth and 
sixteenth centuries it became customary to present the flitch to 
the husband alone, as the reward ot patience. They cite in 
evidence Chaucer's " Wife of Bath," who relates how she treated 
her husbands, and says, — 

The bacoun was not fet for hem, I trowe, 
That som men ban in Essex at Dun mo we. 

But by the end of the sixteenth century the original custom 
had re-established itself, with the following addiiional cere- 
monies. A jury of six bachelors and six maidens was empan- 
elled. Before them came the competing couple, who were forced 
to kneel on two sharp-pointed stones and assent to this metrical 
oath : 

/ You shall swear by custom of confession 

That you ne'er made nuptial transgression ; 

Nor since you were married man and wife, 

By household brawls or contentious strife, 

Or otherwise at bed or at board 

Offended each other in deed or in word, 

Or in a twelvemonth and a day 

Kepented not in thought any way, 

Or since the parish clerk said amen 

Wished yourselves unmarried again, 

But continued true in thought and desire 

As when you joined hands in the quire. 

The jury was not satisfied with the mere taking of the oath. 
Witnesses were questioned and tests applied. Few indeed went 
scathless through the ordeal. 

An amusing incident is related of a couple who were on the 
very point of receiving the prize, when, as a final test, the flitch 
was suspended at the top of a greased pole, and the happy hus- 
band was bidden by the jury to climb there and get it. The 
worthy fellow hesitated, and then frankly explained that he had 
his best clothes on, which if he should spoil, his wife would 
scold him soundly. .He was told to be ofl*, as a fraud, matri- 
monial and porcine. 

If the couple proved successful, the flitch was finally awarded 
with these words : 

23 



354 CURIOSITIES OF 

Since to these conditions without any fear 
Of your own accord you do freely declare, 
A whole flitch of bacon you shall receive, 
And bear it hence with love and good leave : 
« For this is our custom at Dunmow, well known,* 
Though the pleasure is ours, the bacon's your own. 

Thrifty couples took full advantage of the freedom conveyed 
in the latter clause, by selling slices of the bacon at good prices 
to the crowd of merrymakers present. 

The custom seems to have lapsed and been revived from time 
to time at considerable intervals until 1762, when John and 
Susan Gilder, having applied for the flitch, found admission re- 
fused. Next year the lord of the manor removed the symbolical 
" swearing stones" upon which the couple knelt to take the oath. 

Nothing more was heard of the flitch till February 11, 1841, 
when it was rumored that the lord of the manor offered the 
flitch to the queen and prince consort, who had then been mar- 
ried a year and a day. [It is said to have been declined^" In 
1851, Mr. and Mrs. Hurrell having applied, the lord of the manor 
pleaded desuetude, and the villagers supplied the flitch. This 
awakened the interest, amid which Ainsworth's novel " The 
Flitch of Bacon" appeared, which book led to a meeting at 
Dunmow and a correspondence with the novelist, who consented 
to co-operate in a formal revival of the custom and to pay for 
the flitch on the occasion. The result was the celebrated festival 
of July 19, 1855. But the popular interest could not be re- 
awakened, and though in 1857, in 1876, in 1877, and in 1880 the 
flitch was again contested for, the contemporary reports tell 
us that " the attendance was poor and the true joyous spirit was 
absent." 

The custom of awarding a prize of this sort for wedded faith- 
fulness is not peculiar to Dunmow. For a century the abbots 
of St. Meleine, in Bretagne, gave a like trophy. The idea was 
known in Vienna, where, beneath the Eed Tower, a flitch of 
bacon used to hang, beneath which were the following lines : 

Befind' sich irgend hir ein Mann 
Der mit den Wabrheit sprecken kann, 
Dass ihm sine Heurath nischt gerowe, 
Und fiircht' sich nischt vor sine Frowe, 
Der mag desen Backen herunter howe. 

Cj'Is there to be found a married man 
,' That in verity declare can 
That his marriage him doth not rue. 
That he has no fear of his wife for a shrew, 
He may this bacon for himself down hew.") 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 355 

The manor of Wbichmore, in Stafford, was in the time of 
Edward III. granted by the Earls of Lancaster to Sir Philip de 
Somerville on condition that he should maintain and sustain one 
bacon flyke to be given to every man or woman after the day 
and year of their marriage were past who could take this oath : 
" Hear ye, Sir Philip de Somerville, Lord of Whichmore, mayn- 
tener and gyver of this baconne, that I, A, sithe I wedded B, 
my wyfe, and sythe I hadd hyr in my keepyng and at my wylle 
by a yere and a day after our marryage, I wo'd not haue chaunged 
for none other, farer ne fowler, rycher ne pouter, ne for none 
other descended of greater lyneage, slepyng ne wekyng, at noo 
tyme. And yf the said B were sole, and I sole, I wolde take 
hyr to be my wyfe before all the wymen in the worlde, of what 
condicions soever they be, goode or evylle, so helpe me God and 
his sayntis, and thys fleshe and all fleshes." This was for a 
tenure, and in remembrance of it a piece of wood in the form of 
a flitch of bacon hangs in the new mansion, the estate being no 
longer in possession of the Somervilles. (See also Bacon.) 

Dusserah Festival. One of the greatest annual events 
among the Hindoos, celebrated in honor of the goddess Kali. 
The sacrifice of a bullock is the chief feature. The Brahmin 
priests begin by burning incense and making offerings to the 
goddess. The victim is then led to the stake, a man throwing 
water from a jar on its neck until it is tied up and held in posi- 
tion for the death-stroke. Two men pull the beast forward by 
ropes attached to the horns, and two others behind pull in the 
opposite direction with ropes which are passed round the neck. 
A Goorkha then advances with a razor-edged " kookrie" and 
severs the head at a blow. The sacrifice is completed by the 
burning of incense. 

Du"walee Festival. A Hindoo celebration marking the close 
of the mercantile year, when those engaged in commerce care- 
fully cleanse and decorate the exteriors of their houses, and at 
night there is a universal illumination. " The city then appears 
like a creation of the fire-king, the view from the water afford- 
ing the most superb and remarkable spectacle imaginable. The 
outlines of the whole city are marked in streams of fire ; and 
the coruscations of light shoot up into the dark-blue sky above, 
and tremble in long undulations on the rippling waves below." 



366 CURIOSITIES OF 



Easter. The Sunday on which Christian Churches com- 
memorate the resurrection of Christ. The name, which is in 
use only among the English- and German-speaking peoples, is 
derived, in all probability, from that of a goddess of the heathen 
Saxons, Ostara, Osterr, or Eastre. She was the personification 
of the East, of the morning, of the spring. The month of 
April was dedicated to her, and was called Eastermonath among 
the Saxons and Angles, and is still known in Germany as Oster- 
monat. Her worship struck deep root in Northern Germany, 
was carried to England by the Saxons, and still survives in some 
obscure customs in feasts to celebrate the return of the spring. 

Non-Teutonic nations cling to the Semitic word derived from 
the Aramaic word pesach, " to pass by," which has been trans- 
lated into English as Passover (q. v.). Thus the Spanish say 
Pascua, the French Pdques, and the Italians Pasqua. Never- 
theless the Scandinavians say Paaske, and the Dutch Paasch. 
In England the Semitic form survives in many terms applicable 
to the season, as pass-flower, paschal lamb or pass-lamb, and 
pasch, pace, or pase eggs. (See Pasch Egg.) These terms re- 
mind us that our Christian festival is the successor to the Jewish 
Passover, while the word Easter carries us back through the 
Saxons to the more ancient celebrations which from the earliest 
ages of man have expressed the universal outburst of rejoicing 
over the reawakening of nature after the long sleep of winter. 

In the early Church Easter was identical in date with the 
Passover, as in fact the two festivals are identical in their root. 
But the opposition of the Christians to the Jews led to a change. 
The records of the Nicsean Council of a.d. 325 show that this 
opposition was most acute. The very call for the Council 
breathed hostility against the Jews and those Christians who 
celebrated Easter on the day on which the Jews kept passover. 
These Christians were called Quartodecimanians, because they 
celebrated Easter on the 14th day of Nisan, the first month of 
the Jewish year. But the opposition to the Quartodecimanians 
of Asia was more zealous than intelligent ; for the artificial 
day chosen for Easter fell occasionally, as in 1805 and in 1825, 
on the 14th day of the Jewish Nisan, and the Christian Fathers, 
while bitterly opposed to the Jews, adopted without hesitation 
the Jewish mode of reckoning time by lunations. To make the 
matter worse, these lunations do not tally with the facts of as- 
tronomy. The result is that Easter calculations are so extraor- 
dinarily difiicult as to lead to occasional mistakes, like that of 
1818, when Easter was kept on the wrong day. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 357 

It was determined, in the first place, that Easter must invari- 
ably fall on the first Sunday after the fourteenth day of the moon 
that happens to be reigning at the time of the vernal equinox. 
Then it was declared that the date of the equinox should be arbi- 
trarily made March 21, although the equinox really comes some- 
times a little earlier or a little later than the 21st. For example, 
suppose the equinox moon is just fourteen days old on the 2l8t 
of March and that this day falls on Saturday ; then the next day, 
Sunday, would fill the condition noted above, and consequently 
be Easter. The festival may thus be as early as March 22 or as 
late as April 25. In 1761 and 1818, Easter fell on March 22, but 
neither in this nor in the following century will this be the case. 
In 1913, however, it will fall on March 23, as it did in 1845 and 
1856. The latest Easters in this century and the twentieth are 
April 25, in 1886 and 1943. When the right day for Easter is 
finally found, it determines a long series of ecclesiastical days, 
from Ash Wednesday to Trinity Sunday. 

The Christian Easter was originally a sort of thanksgiving 
observance lasting eight days. This conformed somewhat to 
the length of time devoted by pagans to their spring festivities, 
and approached the duration of the Jewish paschal observances. 
The eight-day period was after-wards cut down to three days, after 
that to two, and finally it became, as we have it now, a single / 
day commemorative of the resurrection. 

It was the invariable policy of the early Church to give a 
Christian significance to such of the extant pagan ceremonies as 
could not be rooted out. In the case of Easter the conversion 
was peculiarly easy. Joy at the rising of the natural sun, and 
at the awakening of nature from the death of winter, became 
joy at the rising of the Sun of righteousness, at the resurrec 
tion of Christ from the grave. Some of the pagan observances 
which took place about the 1st of May were also shifted to corre- 
spond with the celebration of Easter. Many new features were 
added. It was a time of exuberant joy. Gregory of Kyssa 
draws a vivid picture of the joyous crowds who, by their dress 
(a feature still preserved) and their devout attendance at church, 
sought to do honor to the festival. All labor ceased, all trades 
were suspended. It was a favorite time for baptism, the law 
courts were closed, alms were given to the poor, slaves were 
freed. Easter Sunday became known as Dominica gaudii (" Sun- 
day of joy"). In the reaction from the austerities of Lent, 
people gave themselves up to enjoyment, popular sports, dances, 
and farcical entertainments. In some places the clergy, to in- 
crease the mirth, recited from the pulpit humorous stories and 
legends for the purpose of exciting the risus Paschalis, or " Easter 
smile." Monks and clerics used to have regular games of ball in 



358 CURIOSITIES OF 

church, and in England the winners received tansy cakes as 
prizes. Feasts were served in churches, till the consequent 
excesses and disorders became past endurance. People ex- 
changed the Easter kiss and the salutation " Christ is risen," to 
which the reply was made, "He is risen indeed," — a custom 
kept up to this day in some parts of the world. 

In England there was a custom in the thirteenth century of 
seizing all ecclesiastics who walked abroad between Easter and 
Pentecost (because the apostles were seized by the Jews after 
Christ's Passion) and making them purchase their liberty by 
money. 

One of the oldest and most wide-spread of Easter supersti- 
tions is that which makes the sun participate in the general 
felicity by dancing in the heavens. Sir John Suckling wrote, in 
"The Bride,"— 

But, oh, she dances such a way, 
No sun upon an Easter Day- 
Is half so fine a sight. 

The question whether the sun really did dance was solemnly 
discussed and combated by grave old scholars, who took the 
trouble to demonstrate, by irrefutable arguments and at great 
length, that while the sun might sometimes shine more brightly 
on Easter morning than on another, it was simply by accident, 
and that in any event there was no dancing and could be none. 
" In some parts of England they call it the lamb playing," wrote 
one, "which they look for, as soon as the sun rises, in some clear 
spring or water, and is nothing but the pretty reflection it makes 
from the water, which they may find at any time, if the sun 
rise clear and they themselves early and unprejudiced with 
fancy." The question was definitively settled by the sun him- 
self, thus, in doggerel, in " The British Apollo," in 1708 : 

Q. — Old wives, Phoebus, say 
That on Easter Day 
To the music o' th' spheres you do caper ; 
If the fact, sir, be true. 
Pray let's the cause know, 
When you have any room in your paper. 

A. — The old wives get merry 

"With spiced ale and sherry 
On Easter, which makes them romance ; 

And whilst in a rout 

Their brains whirl about, 
They fancy we caper and dance. 

This idea of the sun dancing on Easter Day may easily be 
traced back to heathen customs, when the spectators themselves 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 359 

danced at a festival in honor of the sun, after the vernal 
equinox. 

Devonshire maidens still get up early on Easter morning to 
see not onlj- the dancing sun, but also a lamb and a flag in the 
centre of its disk. 

In Scotland the sun was even more active, for there it vras 
expected to whirl round like a mill-wheel and give three leaps. 
One way of looking at the sun's unusual feat was to watch for 
its reflection in a pond or a pail of water, when any movement 
on the surface would materially strengthen the illusion. In a 
similar way, the credulous would be deceived by the morning 
vapor, through which the rising sun would appear to flicker. 

Other superstitions have^ clustered round this festival, some 
of which still linger on. It is considered by many unlucky to 
omit wearing new clothes on Easter Day, and in East Yorkshire 
young people go to the nearest market town to buy some new 
article of dress or personal ornament, as otherwise they believe 
that birds — notably rooks or " crakes" — will spoil their clothes. 
To see a lamb on first looking out of the window on Easter 
morning is a good omen, especiall}^ if its head be turned in the 
direction of the house; but it is not so fortunate if it be lying 
down or looking the other way. It must be remembered, how- 
ever, that to meet a lamb at any time is lucky, as, according to 
the popular notion, the devil can take any other form than that 
of a lamb or a dove. 

If the wind is in the east on Easter Day, it is regarded 
in some places as a wise plan to draw water and wash in it, 
as by this means one will avoid the various ill effects irom 
the east wind throughout the remaining months of the year. 
The same superstition exists on the Continent. Thus, in the 
neighborhood of Mecklenburg, on Easter morning the maid- 
servants fetch Easter water, or on the evening preceding spread 
out linen clothes in the garden, and in the morning wash them- 
selves with the dew, rain, or snow that may have fallen on them. 
This is said to be a preservative against illness for the whole 
year. In Sachsenburg the peasants ride their horses into the 
water to ward off sickness from them. The Easter water, how- 
ever, has virtue only when while drawing it the wind is due 
east. Much importance is attached to rain falling on Easter 
Day, for, according to an old proverb, — 

A good deal of rain on Easter Day 

Gives a crop of good grass, but little good hay. 

Again, if the sun shines on Easter morning it will, we are told, 
shine on Whitsunday. A Sussex piece of weather-lore goes 



360 CURIOSITIES OF 

further, and tells us that if the sun shines on Easter Day it will 
shine a little every day all the year round ; while there is a 
corresponding notion that if it rains it will rain a little, if only 
a few drops, every day during the ensuing year. 

A curious custom, called " sugar-cupping," was formerly kept 
up on Easter Day at the Dripping Torr, near Tideswell, in 
Derbyshire. The young people assembled at the Torr, each 
provided with a cup and a small quantity of sugar or honey, 
and, having caught the required supply of water, they mixed 
the sugar with it, and then drank it, meantime repeating a 
doggerel verse. 

A singular ceremony formerly prevailed at Lostwithiel, in 
Cornwall, on Easter Day. The freeholders of the town and 
manor having met together, either in person or their deputies, 
one among them, each in his turn, gayly attired, with a sceptre 
in his hand, a crown on his head, and a sword borne before him, 
and attended by all the rest on horseback, rode through the 
principal streets in solemn state to the church. At the church- 
yard the officiating minister met him, and then conducted him 
to the church to hear divine service. On leaving the church he 
repaired, with the same pomp and retinue, to a house previously 
prepared for his reception. Here a feast, suited to the dignity 
he had assumed, awaited him and his suite, at the conclusion 
of which the prince was disrobed, and so the ceremony ended. 
This custom, it is said, originated in the actual appearance of the 
prince, who resided at Restormel Castle, in former ages. On 
the removal of royalty this mimic grandeur stepped forth as its 
shadowy representative, and continued for many generations as 
a memorial to posterit}^ of the princely magnificence with which 
Lostwithiel had formerly been honored. 

Such is the explanation given by Kitchens in his " History of 
Cornwall" (1824, vol. i. p. 717). But in truth the appearance 
of a symbolical Easter King was frequent at this season in con- 
tinental Europe. There is in confirmation the old story of 
Charles Y., who while riding through a village in his Spanish 
kingdom was met by a peasant attired in the fantastic robes of 
the Paschal monarch, with a tin crown upon his head and a 
spit for a truncheon. Not knowing who the rider was, the 
peasant commanded him to doff his hat. " My good friend," 
responded the Emperor, as he complied with the request, " I 
wish you joy in your new office : you will find it a troublesome 
one, 1 can assure you." 

TJntil recently an immemorial custom called " chipping the 
block" was observed at University College, Oxford. A block in 
the form of a long wooden pole, decorated with flowers and ever- 
greens, was placed outside the door of the hall, leaning against 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 361 

the wall of the buttery opposite. After dinner on Easter Day 
the college cook and bis attendant, dressed in white paper caps 
and white jackets, took their stand on either side of the block, 
each bearing a pewter dish, one supporting a blunt chopping-axe 
from the kitchen, the other in readiness for the fees expected on 
the occasion. As the members of the college came out of the 
hall, each took the axe and struck the block with it, and then 
placed in the pewter dish the usual fee to the cook. According 
to one tradition mentioned by Mr. Henderson, any one who 
could chop the block in two was entitled to lay claim to all the 
college estates. 

In Eome Easter Sunday is celebrated with elaborate cere- 
monies ; though since the fall of the temporal power these have 
been shorn of much of their magnificence. The day is ushered 
in by the firing of cannon from the castle of St. Angelo, and 
about seven o'clock carriages with ladies and gentlemen are be- 
ginning to pour towards St. Peter's. That magnificent basilica 
is richlj^ decorated for the occasion, the altars are freshly orna- 
mented, and the lights around the tomb and figure of St. Peter 
are blazing after their temporary extinction on Good Friday. 
Formerly the Pope officiated this day at mass in St. Peter's. 
From a hall in an adjoining palace of the Vatican he was borne 
into the church. Seated in his Sedia Gestatoria, his vestments 
blazed with gold ; on his head he wore the tiara, a tall round 
gilded cap representing a triple crown, understood to signify 
spiritual power, temporal power, and the union of both. Beside 
him were borne the flabelli, or large fans, composed of ostrich 
feathers, in which were set the eye-like parts of peacocks' 
feathers, to signify the eyes or vigilance of the Church. Over 
him was carried a silk canopy richly fringed. Thus he was 
escorted to his throne, which stands far back in the distance 
behind the altar. Lining the avenue from it to the shrine of the 
apostles stood the Noble Guards in full uniform, a living hedge 
of athletic men. The tribunes built up in the transepts con- 
tained all those official persons whose duty it was to be present 
on this occasion, and all wore uniform. The ladies were in black, 
and their long lace veils, which were de rigueur in their costume 
for the ceremonies, lent a softening tone to the bright splendor 
of the uniforms and colored robes of office. The crown of the 
whole great pageant, however, was the unrivalled Papal choir, 
which now outdid itself in its magnificently calm rendering of 
the solemn church chant. At the elevation of the sacred host, the 
word of command was rung out in a clarion-like voice by one of 
the officers, and the military in the body of the church all pre- 
sented arms as they suddenly dropped on one knee. The Noble 
Guards drew their swords and lilted them up in a bristling hedge 



362 CURIOSITIES OF 

of steel, while they also were on their knees ; and from the lofty 
tribune under the dome issued the sound of the silver trumpets, 
the only instrumental music allowed during the Papal functions. 
Again at the moment of the communion the same evolutions 
were gone through, save that the trumpets no longer sounded, 
and that in perfect silence a cardinal bore the consecrated host 
to the foot of the Papal throne, where the Pontiff knelt to 
receive it. 

No sooner was the mass over than the Pope was with the 
same ceremony and to the sound of music borne back through 
the crowded church to the balcony over the central doorway. 
There, rising from his chair of state and turning first to the east 
and then to the west, he pronounced a benediction, with indulgence 
and absolution. The crowed was most dense immediate^ under 
the balcony at which the Pope appeared, for there papers were 
thrown down containing a copy of the prayers that had been 
uttered, and ordinarily there was a scramble to catch them. 

"At night," says a spectator of the ancient glories, "civic fes- 
tivities follow the religious pageant of the morning. St. Peter's 
is illuminated by means of hundreds of thousands of tiny oil 
lamps, whose white gleam has given the name of ' silver illumi- 
nation' to this part of the show. These lamps are placed at 
short intervals along every prominent line and curve of the 
colossal building, and produce an effect as of a fairy architect's 
plan. After about half an hour, a gun suddenly booms from the 
castle of St. Angelo, and the ' silver' is changed almost instantane- 
ously to a 'golden' illumination. This magical effect is produced 
by the sudden kindling of large hanging pans full of resinous 
matter, also disposed along the architectural lines and curves 
of the basilica, and completely outshining in their strong, fiery 
glare the more delicate radiance of the little lamps. One man 
has no more than two or three of these pans to attend to, so 
that it is easy for him to fire them all almost simultaneously. 
The numberless dark figures moving aloft with cat-like agility 
among the massive shadows of the basilica are plainly visible 
to those stationed in the balconies of the piazza; but a far more 
satisfactory way of seeing the illumination is to go to the Monte 
Pincio, at the opposite side of the town ; the great dome of fire 
stands out in weird magnificence against the sky. and the sudden 
change, of which no human agency can be seen at that distance, 
has in consequence a proportionately enhanced effect upon the 
imagination." 

All this is now changed. It is the cardinal arch-priest who 
says mass in St. Peter's. The Pope himself officiates at a private 
mass in the Consistory within the Vatican palace. It needs 
what in Yankee is called " a pull" to obtain an invitation. The 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 363 

costume required is full dress for men spectators and a Spanish 
mantilla tlirown over the dress for women. The ceremony 
begins at eight o'clock. Two prelates assist the Pope. 

A ceremony which survives in many of the Spanish-American 
countries is thus described by a traveller who witnessed it in 
Cuba : 

" At the great cathedral was drawn up an escort of troops. 
Soon comes forth a full-sized wax figure of the Saviour, with 
open wounds, standing upon a platform or pedestal, highly deco- 
rated, and borne upon the heads of men who are shielded from 
the public gaze by a deep curtain, reaching nearly to the ground. 
With music playing, the procession, with priests, crosses, candles, 
etc., moved slowly along the street. 

" Soon appeared, coming in an opposite direction, a full-sized 
figure of Mary Magdalene, borne on the shoulders of four priests. 
It approaches the image of the Saviour, until a seeming recogni- 
tion takes place, when it turns suddenly round, and, by the pecu- 
liar running motion of the priests, the image appears to run 
very hard up the street, wnth her long curls shaking in wild con- 
fusion. She meets the image of the Virgin Mary, and tells her 
of the resurrection, when they both return down the street, the 
Yirgin Mary being in advance. 

" When the Yirgin Mary arrives near the Saviour, by the sud- 
den motion of the forw^ard bearers each figure is made to bow 
to the other several times, and they all proceed onward to the 
church from which the two Marys were taken. Both images of 
the Marys are dressed ver}- gaudily. The dress of the Virgin 
Mary was of yellow satin, trimmed with gold, and she had a 
crown upon her head. Mary Magdalene was dressed in blue. 

" After entering the church, the troops fired a feu~de-joie, and 
slowly the crowd of wondering spectators dispersed." 

Midnight mass is said in churches of the Grreek faith. A con- 
tributor to the National Review thus describes the ceremony as 
he witnessed it in the cathedral at Tiflis : 

" The service commences in the dull gloom, for, with the ex- 
ception of a few lights upon and in the vicinit}^ of the altar, the 
church is unlit. But this gloom tends to heighten the effect of 
the group of richlj^-robed and mitred priests that throng the 
steps, chanting in turn with the choir of unaccompanied boys' 
and men's voices the music of the service. In contrast to the 
group about the altar steps was the dark heaving crowd, half 
hidden in the filmy clouds of the incense and the dusk of the 
building. At length, as midnight approached, the priests and 
choir filed down the church and left the building by the main 
entrance, one or two alone remaining within. Then, as a rocket 
without gave the sign of midnight, a loud knocking commenced 



4. 



364 CURIOSITIES OF 

at the door, which was repeated several times. On the gate 
being opened, the priests and choir hurried in, crying out again 
and again, ' Christ is risen ! Christ is risen !' Each bore in his 
hand a lighted taper, from which the nearer members of the 
crowd lit their own, passing the flame from candle to candle, for 
every one in the building bore a taper. It took but a minute to 
change the entire scene, and as the priests made their way to the 
altar, swinging their censers as they went, the gloom of the 
church disappeared, and the building was lit by thousands upon 
thousands of candles ; where, before, the dusk had prevented one 
seeing either the church or the crowd, every picture and detail 
of the decoration of the building and every figure in it became 
distinct. The seething mass of humanity took form and shape, 
and where, before, one recognized only dark figures in an incense- 
laden twilight, one recognized now the officers of the govern- 
ment, in uniforms bespangled with orders, accompanied by their 
wi ves and daughters." 
7 The celebration of Easter in the United States is now an 
! established practice. ^New England was the last section to adopt 
a festival upon which the settlers of Puritan Massachusetts looked 
with particular abhorrence. Some of the States, like Virginia 
and Louisiana, have always kept Easter after a fashion, and so 
have certain denominations, like the Catholics, the Anglicans, 
and the Lutherans. But fifty years ago these denominations 
were neither strong nor popular in this country, and the influence 
of Virginia and Louisiana upon the manners of the American 
people was not great. 

It is impossible to name the exact time when Easter began to 
commend itself to many people and many Churches that had 
looked upon the Christian festival as a Catholic or quasi-Catholic 
error. It appears that about the time of the war the P^igsbyte- 
rians began lo preach Easter sermons and to adorn their churches 
with Easter flowers. These churches seem to have followed the 
example set to them by their sister societies. It had been cus- 
tomary to embellish the sanctuary with flowers, and the war 
period made it natural for many people to remember with special 
fervor the Christian lesson of the resurrection. The movement 
thus begun was aided by the season in which the older Churches 
celebrated the resurrection of Christ, while all nature proclaimed 
the revival of spring, its flowers and its hopes. Even now, how- 
ever, it is in the cities rather than in the country that Easter is 
most generally celebrated. 

By a singular coincidence, polite society- and the Churches 
have entered upon a quiet agreement to make Easter a marked 
day. When Lent begins, society gives up dancing-parties, and 
all ladies, who choose, may rest from their social labors. This 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 365 

period of comparative quiet ends on Easter Day. On that day 
the spring season of society begins, and young women appear for 
the first time in their spring bonnets. 'MilHners, caterers, dress- 
makers, and flower-dealers understand this law of the social 
world. Latterly the manufacturers and dealers in Easter cards 
have developed a taste both novel and popular. Indeed, Amer- 
ican Easter cards have fairly outstripped the English article ; and 
the American consumption of these pretty commodities exceeds 
that of England. 

Easter Hare. In Germany the Easter hare is almost as im- 
portant a figure in nursery lore as the Christmas St. Nicholas. 
Children are taught to believe that if they are good and mind 
their parents and are truthful and kind to one another, a white 
hare will steal into the house on Easter Eve, when everybody is 
asleep, and secrete any number of beautifully colored eggs in odd 
corners for the good little children. 

When the housewife comes in from her marketing on the 
fateful evening, the " kinderkins" do not see the heaps of eggs in 
the basket. They can think of nothing but the white hare. 
Has Maya been naughty ? Has Hans been good ? Those are 
the questions that agitate their little minds all through the even- 
ing meal. 

Soon afterwards they are tucked nicely in bed, but not to sleep. 
They are watching for the white hare. Meanwhile the house- 
wife is in the kitchen boiling the eggs in many gay patterns of 
cheap print cloth, which ultimately leaves them decked in all the 
hues of the rainbow. There are blue eggs, green eggs, and red 
eggs, and eggs that are all three colors, and more besides. 

When the eggs are all nicely done the parents take them and 
hide them away in various corners where they cannot easily be 
found. Then perhaps the chuckling couple go around the corner 
to a beer-saloon to enjoy the music and drink beer. Sometimes 
in the midst of the music and the clink of mugs they think of 
the kinderkins at home listening for the white hare, and they 
laugh and are happy. 

It is almost dawn before the children fall asleep. When they 
awake it is broad daylight and Easter morning. How about the 
white hare ? Has anybody seen it ? The mother is certain she 
heard a noise. The father is not quite sure whether they have 
been good enough or not. When they are dressed he leads them 
all over the house in search of the eggs left by the white hare. 
They are nowhere to be found. Alas ! they have been bad chil- 
dren. Just then, over in a dark corner, the father spies a gor- 
geous red egg. How the children shout as they carry the prize 
into the light. What a marvellous Qgg it is! Then more and 



366 CURIOSITIES OF 

more are found, until there can be no possible doubt that the 
wonderful white hare thinks them very good children. 

The connection between Easter and the hare springs from the 
latter's connection with the moon. Easter, inasmuch as its date 
depends upon the moon, is in a sense a lunar holiday. Now, 
from very ancient times the hare has been a symbol for the 
moon. There are many reasons for this. A few ow\y need be 
given. The hare is a nocturnal animal, and comes out at night 
to feed. The female carries her young for a month, thus repre- 
senting the lunar cycle. Both hare and moon were thought to 
have the power of changing their sex. The new moon was 
masculine, the waning moon feminine. The superstition about 
the hare is mentioned by Pliny, Archelaus, and others. It is 
crystallized in the lines of Beaumont and Fletcher ("Faithless 
Shepherdess," Act HI.),— 

Hares that yearly sexes change, 
Proteus, altering oft and strange, 
Hecate with shapes three, 
Let this maiden changed be. 

Here again we have the hare in close connection with Hecate, 
or the moon. 

But a more important reason for the identification of the hare 
with the moon lay in the fact that its young are born with their 
eyes open, unlike rabbits, which are born blind. The name of 
the hare in Egyptian was wn, which means "open," "to open," 
" the opener." Now, the moon was the open-eyed watcher of 
the skies at night, and the hare, born with open eyes, was fabled 
never to close them ; hence the old Latin expression somnus 
leporinus and the identification of the open-eyed hare with the 
full moon. The old principle of cure by sympathies led to the 
prescription in- the early English folk-lore of the brains and eyes 
of the hare as a cure for somnolency. 

The Egyptian wi meant not only " hare" and " open," but 
" period," and for this reason the hare became the type of peri- 
odicity, both human and lunar, and in the character of opener 
was associated with the opening of the new year at Easter, as 
well as with the beginning of a new life in the youth and maiden. 
Hence the hare became connected in the popular mind with the 
paschal eggs, broken to signify the opening of the year. 

Even in America we may see in the confectioners' windows 
the hare (or rather a rabbit) wheeling his barrow full of eggs 
or drawing one large one as a sort of triumphal chariot. In 
some parts of Europe the Easter eggs are made nj) into cakes in 
the shape of hares, and the little children are told that babies 
aie found in the form of hares. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 367 

Among English popular customs celebrating Easter are many 
traces of the hare myth. In Warwickshire, at Coleshill, if the 
young men of the parish can catch a hare and bring it to the parson 
before ten o'clock in the morning of Easter Monday (the moon- 
day), he is bound to give them a calf's head, one hundred eggs, 
and a groat, the calf's head being probably a survival of the 
worship of Baal, or the sun, as the Golden Calf 

The Leicester custom of hunting the hare is also in point. 
On Easter Monday the mayor and the city officials, in their 
scarlet robes, used to go to Black-Annis' Bower Close for the 
ostensible purpose of hunting a hare. But, as there were no 
hares to be hunted at this season, a feeble compromise was ef- 
fected by trailing a dead cat soaked in anise-seed water before 
a pack of hounds, amid the shouts of the spectators. Although 
this form of drag-hunting has long been discontinued, an annual 
fair held in the neighborhood preserved until recently many 
traces of the Leicester Hare Hunt. 

Most curious of all is the Hallaton Hare Scramble and Bottle- 
Kicking which occurs annually on Easter Monday. C. J. Bill- 
son, in " County Folk-Lore, Leicestershire and Eutland" (1895), 
tells us that " at a remote period," unidentifiable to modern an- 
tiquaries, a piece of land was bequeathed to the rector, condition- 
ally that he provided annually two hare pies, a quantity of ale, 
and two dozen penny loaves, to be scrambled for on each suc- 
ceeding Easter Monday at the rising ground called Hare-Pie 
Bank, about a quarter of a mile south of the village of Hallaton. 
Of course, hares being out of season at this time of the year, 
pies of mutton, veal, and bacon are substituted. A benevolent 
rector of the last century made an effort to have the funds ap- 
plied to a better use ; but the village wags were equal to the 
occasion, and raised the cry^and chalked on his walls and door, 
as well as on the church, "No pie, no parson, and a job for the 
glazier." Other subsequent; efforts alike failed. " Easter Mon- 
day at Hallaton is the great carnival of the year. The two 
benefit societies hold their anniversary at the ' Eoyal Oak' and 
the ' Fox Inn,' and bands accompany the processions to the parish 
church, where the ' club sermon' is preached. After dinner at 
the inns, a deputation is sent to the rectory for the ' pies and 
beer,' and then the procession is formed in the following order : 

" Two men abreast, carrying two sacks with the pies cut up. 

" Three men abreast, carrying aloft a bottle each ; two of 
these are filled with beer; they are ordinary field wood bottles, 
but without the usual mouth, iron-hooped all over, with a hole 
left for drinking from; the third is a dummy. Occasionally a 
hare is carried, in a sitting posture, mounted on the top of a 
pole. 



368 CURIOSITIES OF 

" The procession increases greatly in numbers as it approaches 
Hare-Pie Bank, where the pies are pitched out of the sack and 
scrambled for. The spectators amuse themselves by throwing 
the contents of the pies at each other. Then follows the well- 
known ' Hallaton bottle-kicking.' One of the large bottles con- 
taining ale is thrown into the circular hollow on the mound, and 
the ' Medbourne men,' or other villagers who care to join in the 
sport, try to wrest the bottle from the Hallatonian grasp. A 
fierce contest then ensues, in compaiison with which a foot-ball 
scrimmage is mere child's play. It is useless to describe the 
battle that ensues, the Hallatonians striving to kick the bottle 
to their boundary-line over the brook adjoining the village, while 
their opponents endeavor to convey it towards the Medbourne 
boundary. The victors, of course, claim the contents of the 
bottle. Then ' the dummy' is fought for with unabated zest, for 
the Hallaton people boast that this has never been wrested 
from them. The third bottle is taken in triumph to the market- 
cross and its contents drunk with accustomed honors. The 
bottles are carefully kept from year to year, and those now in 
use have done duty for more than thirty years." 

The Easter hare myth has reached America. Here, however, 
as in other countries where the hare is scarce or unknown, it 
has been transformed into its near relation the rabbit. Perhaps 
this was originally due to the confectioners, who are rarely ex- 
perts in natural history. 

Another form of the hare myth is the curious superstition 
among the negroes as to the talismanic virtues of the left hind 
foot of a graveyard rabbit killed in the dark of the moon. 

Easter Monday and Tuesday. In England and Ireland 
Easter Monday is a holiday (see Bank Holiday), and on the 
continent of Europe the following day is also a popular holiday. 
The curious custom of heaving or lifting on Easter holidays 
still survives in some parts of England, In imitation of the sun, 
supposed to rise on Easter morning in three leaps, the men lift 
the women on Easter Monday and the women return the com- 
pliment on Easter Tuesday, the victim being lifted three times, 
and then kissed and let off for a consideration. The lifting is 
sometimes done by means of a chair, sometimes by the lifters 
joining their hands at the wrist so as to improvise a seat, upon 
which the person to be lifted is placed, and at other times less 
decorously by the lifters taking hold of the victim by the arms 
and legs. The custom is an old one, as appears from a record in 
the Tower entitled " Liber Contrarotulatoris Hospicii," referring 
to an event in the eighteenth year of the reign of Edward I. (1290). 
On the Easter Monday seven of Queen Eleonora's ladies un- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 369 

ceremoniously invaded Longahanks's chamber, and, seizing their 
majestic master, proceeded to heave him in his chair till he was 
glad to pay a fine of fourteen pounds to regain his liberty. 

Brand in his " Popular Antiquities" quotes a correspondent 
who under date of 1799 gives a graphic description of a heaving 
to which he was subjected in Shrewsbury. " I was sitting 
alone," he says, " last Easter Tuesday at breakfast at the Talbot 
in Shrewsbury, when I was surprised by the entrance of all the 
female servants of the house handing in an arm-chair, lined with 
white, and decorated with ribbons and favors of different colors. 
I asked them what they wanted. Their answer was, they came 
to heave me. It was the custom of the place on that morning, 
and they hoped I would take a seat in their chair. It was im- 
possible not to comply with a request very modestly made, and 
to a set of nymphs in their best apparel, and several of them 
under twenty. I wished to see all the ceremony, and seated 
myself accordingly. The group then lifted me from the ground, 
turned the chair about, and I had the felicity of a salute from 
each. I told them I supposed there was a fee due upon the 
occasion, and was answered in the aflSrmative ; and, having 
satisfied the damsels in this respect, they withdrew to heave 
others. At this time I had never heard of such a custom ; but, 
on inquiry, I found that on Easter Monday, between nine and 
twelve, the men heave the women in the same manner as on the 
Tuesday, between the same hours, the women heave the men. I 
will not offer any conjecture on the ground of the custom, be- 
cause I have nothing like data to go upon ; but if you should 
happen to have heard anything satisfactory respecting it, I 
should be highly gratified by your mentioning it." 

A Warwickshire correspondent in a later edition of the same 
book_(1849) adds this note : 

'(Ji?he women's heaving day was the most amusing. Many a 
time have I passed along the streets inhabited by the lower 
orders of people, and seen parties of jolly matrons assembled 
round tables on which stood a foaming tankard of ale. There 
they sat in all the pride of absolute sovereignty, and woe to the 
luckless man that dared to invade their prerogatives ! as sure as 
he was seen he was pursued, as sure as he was pursued he was 
taken, and as sure as he was taken he was heaved and kissed, 
and compelled to pay sixpence for ' leave and license' to depart." 

No one, no matter what his age or dignity, could escape. 
Chambers's " Book of Days," vol. i. p. 425, tells an amusing story 
in point : 

, A grave clergyman who happened to be passing through a 
town in Lancashire on an Easter Tuesday, and having to stay 
an hour or two at an inn, was astonished by thr^e or four lusty 

24 



370 CURIOSITIES OF 

women rushing into his room, exclaiming they had " come to lift 
him." " To lift me !" repeated the amazed divine ; " what can 
you mean ?" " Why, your reverence, we've come to lift you, 
'cause it's Easter Tuesday." " Lift me because it's Easter Tues- 
day ! I don't understand you. Is there any such custom here ?" 
'' Yes, to be sure ; why, don't you know ? All us women was 
lifted yesterday, and us lifts the men to-day in turn. And, in 
course, it's our rights and duties to lift 'em." After a little 
further parley, the reverend traveller compromised with his fair 
visitors for half a crown, and thus escaped the dreaded compli- 
ment. 

Variants of the custom exist, or used to exist, in certain parts 
of England and Wales. Thus, in many Yorkshire villages the 
young men on Easter Sunday used to take off the young girls' 
buckles, and on the Easter Monday the young men's shoes and 
buckles were taken off by the young women. On the Wednes- 
day they were redeemed by little pecuniary forfeits, out of which 
an entertainment called a Tansy Cake was provided, and the 
jollity concluded with dancing. At Eipon, where this custom 
also prevailed, it is reported that no traveller could pass the town 
w^ithout being stopped, and, if a horseman, having his spurs 
taken away, unless redeemed by a little money, which was the 
only means to get them returned. 

Cole in his "History of Filey" (1828, p. 136) mentions a sim- 
ilar custom as practised in that place. He says the young men 
seize the shoes of the females, collecting as many as they can, 
and on the following day the girls retaliate by getting the men's 
hats, which are to be redeemed on a subsequent evening, when 
both parties assemble at one of the inns and partake of a rural 
repast. (^Gentleman's Magazine^ 1790, vol. Ix. p. 719.) 

Durand tells us that on Easter Tuesday wives used to beat 
their husbands, on the day following the husbands their wives. 
The Hocktide {q. v.) customs were remotely analogous to these 
of Easter. 

That all had a root in some common custom in the remote 
past is evident from the fact that similar rites are not unknown in 
Germany. Thus, at Warth the boys go about flogging the girls 
on Easter Monday, in return for which the boys must give them 
fish and potatoes on Easter Tuesday and provide the music for a 
general dance. 

A custom called " clipping the church" was kept up in War- 
wickshire on Easter Monday until the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century. It was performed by the children of the different 
charity schools, who at a certain hour flocked together for the 
purpose. The first comers placed themselves hand in hand with 
their backs against the church, and were joined by their com- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 371 

panions, who gradually increased in number, till at last the chain 
was of sufficient length to surround the sacred edifice. As soon 
as the hand of the last of the train had grasped that of the 
first, the party broke up, and walked in procession to the 
other church (for in those days Birmingham boasted of but 
two churches), where the ceremony was repeated. {Hone's 
Every Bay Book, vol. i. p. 431.) 

In the days of the temporal power of the Papacy the giran- 
dola, or monster exhibition of fireworks, took place on Easter 
Monday on the slope of the Pincian Hill in Rome. A covered 
tribune opposite the ascent to the Pincio, divided into boxes 
and stretching the whole length of the Piazza del Popolo, was 
reserved for official personages. The piazza itself was crowded 
with a surging crowd arrayed in all sorts of picturesque garbs. 
j' It is impossible," says Lady Blanche Murphy in the Galaxy for 
April, 1873, " to give an idea of the scale on which these fire- 
works were ofi'ered gratis as a public spectacle to the people by 
the Papal government, and it was certainly a scale which would 
dwarf and shame the most elaborate exhibition of pyrotechnics 
in any other capital. Foremost in the programme was always 
some stately architectural device. One year we had a view of 
Pompeii, with its delicate temples and Grecian columns rising 
gracefully one behind the other, the whole flooded with quivering 
light, and looking like the realization of a classic dream, while 
in the piazza below the band of the Papal chasseurs played the 
march out of ' Tone,' an opera founded on Bulwer's ' Last Days 
of Pompeii.' Another year the architectural device was a grand 
temple, more graceful than St. Peter's and more perfect than 
St. Paul's (London), its dome uplifted like a great fiery bell, in 
perfect proportion with the rest of the airy building. Turning 
to the programme, I found it was a representation of Michael 
Angelo's original plan of St. Peter's, now preserved in the Vati- 
can Library." 

An ancient custom still observed by the boys of Christ's Hos- 
pital, London, on Easter Tuesday, is that of paying a visit to the 
Mansion House to receive from the lord mayor what are known 
as the Easter Bobs. The ceremony annually attracts a good deal 
of public attention, as the boys march " in fours" through the 
streets of the City to the Mansion House, where they are forth- 
with regaled with two buns apiece. Thus fortified, they file 
before the lord mayor, who, from sundry piles of new money on 
the table before him, presents each " Grecian" with a sovereign, 
and all the other boys, according to their standing, with coins of 
lesser value. Before they retire, the boys have a glass of lemonade. 
At one time the alternative of sherry was permitted. This form 
of "local option," liowever, has been abolished. 



372 



CURIOSITIES OF 



After the ceremony the lord mayor and the rest of the civic 
authorities, in the customary state, accompany the boys to 
Christ Church, Newgate Street, where a sermon is preached. 
This sermon still retains the name of the second Spital sermon, 




Easter Bobs at the Mansion House. 



although the first, which used to be preached on Easter Monday, 
has been discontinued. 

In the Tyrol a peculiar bit of drollery similar to our April 
fool custom is practised on Easter Tuesday. The bauer awakes 
in the morning to find his manure-heap carefully laden on a cart 
and hoisted onto his roof, along with ploughs, flails, harrows, 
and other farming-utensils. The milkmaid seeks her pails in 
vain, for they are lying in the trough of the village pump, with 
the churn to keep them company. The church is completely 
barricaded with wagons, benches, doors, fafi^ots, etc. Mich'l 
misses his new pipe, and neighbor Jos'l his brindled cow; but 
the latter's absence is easily accounted for when the priest's good 
old housekeeper goes into the garden to water the lettuces. She 
might have saved herself the trouble, for the brindled cow has 
made short work with the vegetables. It may easily be con- 
ceived that the sufferers are not choice in their language towards 
the perpetrators of the mischief; but there the matter rests. 
No harm is done, and the missing goods and chattels are soon 
recovered by their rightful owners. 

Easter Sepulchre. A stone or wooden structure more 
common in the ancient churches of the Roman faith than in the 
modern. In general design it resembled a tomb, and usually 
stood on the north side of the chancel. Though in use only two 
days in the year, it was frequently adorned with a wealth of 
paintings, sculptures, and bas-reliefs. Easter sepulchres were 
especially popular in Catholic England, and more or less muti- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 373 

lated remains are still extant in some of the great cathedrals 
and churches. 

On Maundy Thursday it is still the Eoman custom for the 
priest celebrating mass to consecrate three hosts, one for recep- 
tion that day, another for use on Good Friday, and still another 
to be shut up in the pyx, or, where the church contains an 
Easter sepulchre, to be buried therein on Good Friday. Often 
the crucifix exposed for adoration on Good Friday accompanies 
it. In many places numerous candles are lighted, and a contin- 
ual succession of watchers stand by the sepulchre or other recep- 
tacle until the dawn of Easter Day. Then crucifix and host 
are once more removed to the altar, and the church re-echoes 
with joyous praise. 

In a curious work entitled " The Ancient Eites and Monu- 
ments of the Monastical and Cathedral Church of Durham," 
collected from ancient monasteries about the time of the sup- 
pression, and published by J. D. (J. Davies) of Kidwelly in 1672, 
there is a minute account of a Good Friday ceremonial of this 
sort as celebrated at Durham Cathedral. Its value is enhanced 
by the fact that the book was probably written by one who had 
acted as a participant. " Within the church of Durham, upon 
Good Friday, there was a marvellous solemn service, in which 
service time, after the Passion was sung, two of the ancient 
monks took a goodly large crucifix, all of gold, of the picture 
of our Saviour Christ, nayled upon the cross. . . . The service 
being ended, the said two monks carried the cross to the sepul- 
chre with great reverence, which sepulchre was set up in the 
morning on the north side of the quire, nigh the high altar, be- 
fore the service time, and they did lay it within the said sepulchre 
with great devotion, with another picture of our Saviour Christ, 
in whose Breast they did enclose, with great reverence, the most 
holy and blessed Sacrament of the Altar, censing and praying 
unto it upon their knees, a great space ; and setting two hghted 
tapers before it, which did burn till Easter Day in the morning, 
at which time it was taken forth. . . . There was very solemn 
service betwixt three and four of the clock in the morning, in 
honor of the Eesurrection, w^here two of the eldest monks in the 
quire came to the sepulchre, set up upon Good Fryday, after the 
Passion, all covered with red velvet embroidered with gold, and 
did then cense it, either of the monks, with a pair of silver cen- 
sers, sitting on their knees before the sepulchre. Then they, 
both rising, came to the sepulchre, out of which, with great 
reverence, they took a marvellous beautiful image of our Saviour, 
representing the Eesurrection, with a cross in his hand, and on 
Br the breast was enclosed, in most bright crystal, the Holy Sacra- 
B ment of the Altar, through which crystal the Blessed Host was 

I 



374 CURIOSITIES OF 

conspicuous to the beholders. Then after the elevation of the 
said picture carried by the said two monks, upon a fair velvet 
cushion, all embroidered, singing the anthem of Christus Besur- 
gens, they brought it to the high altar." 

Elsewhere in England, as well as on the Continent, it was 
often the custom to wash the cross, after its adoration on Good 
Friday, with wine and water. The ablution was given to the 
priest and people to drink, in memory of the blood and water 
which flowed from the side of the crucified Redeemer. After 
washing, the cross was carried to the sepulchre, thence to be 
triumphantly taken to the high altar on Easter morning, the 
choir meanwhile singing the anthem " Surrexit Dominus." 

Both usages, the burial of the host and of the cross, were 
practised in Eouen in 1079. They have local survivals in Cath- 
olic Europe, but the name sepulchre is not always given to the 
place of temporary deposit. (See Good Friday.) 

The Greek Church celebrates a somewhat similar ceremony. 
Upon Good Friday evening a procession starts from every 
church, headed by a military band playing a funeral march, 
priests, choristers, and others following immediately after it, 
chanting a melancholy dirge during all the intervals of military 
music, Then comes an effigy of the Saviour borne upon a bier 
(or sometimes only a painting upon white satin), as if going to 
burial. As the dead are alwaj's carried in Greece in an unclosed 
coffin, with the body exposed to view, so the effigy is carried low 
by slings, that all may see it. Members of the several congre- 
gations in great numbers follow it, bearing lighted tapers, and 
thus they perambulate the streets, only stopping at the cor 
ners of some of the principal thoroughfares for the reading of 
certain prayers and for singing low, monotonous chants. 

In the Church of the H0I3" Sepulchre at Jerusalem the Greeks 
on Good Friday bear in procession, in lieu of the image, a piece 
of brocade embroidered with a representation of the body of 
our Saviour, which is placed in the tomb, and after a short 
repose there is brought out again and carried into the Greek 
chapel. 

Edmund, St., King and Martyr. His festival is celebrated 
on the day of his death, November 20. . Son of the King of 
Saxony, he was chosen by Offa, King of East Anglia, to succeed 
him, and landed in England in 856. After a peaceful reign of 
fifteen years his kingdom was invaded by the Danes, and he was 
defeated in the battle of Hoxne. He was offered life and liberty 
if he would abjure his faith, but he refused, whereupon he was 
bound by the Danes to a tree, shot with arrows, and finally 
beheaded (November 20, 870). Legend says that when the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 375 

Christians who had hidden came forth to bniy the king his head 
could not be found, till at last it was discovered guarded by a 
wolf, who allowed them to take it and followed it to the burial. 
Being placed on the body, it united instantly. A great church 
and monastery were built over the shrine of the saint, and the 
town about was called Bury St. Edmunds, a name it still retains. 
During a Danish war in 1010 the bones of St. Edmund were 
borne to London, and legend has it that as the relics passed 
through Cripplegate the lame were restored to the use of their 
limbs. The body was taken back to Bury St. Edmunds in 1013. 
The shrine of St. Edmund is memorable as the place where the 
English barons banded together to obtain Magna Charta from 
King John. 

Edward, St., King and Martyr (962-978). His festival is 
celebrated on his death-day, March 18. When only thirteen 
years of age he succeeded his father Edgar on the throne of 
England, despite the opposition of his step-mother Elfrida, the 
late king's widow, who had formed a party in favor of her own 
son, Ethelred. Under the guidance of St. Dunstan, he ruled 
well, but only for three years. One day he was out hunting in 
the neighborhood of Corfe Castle, in Dorsetshire, Queen Elfrida's 
residence. He stopped there for refreshment, and while drink- 
ing was treacherously stabbed, — it is said, by order of his 
step-mother. She had him buried without any royal honors at 
Wareham. Many miracles are said to have been performed at 
his grave. Two years later his body was removed, with much 
pomp, to King Alfred's minster at Shaftesbury. The title of 
Martyr was given to him partly on account of his unjust and 
cruel murder, and partly because of the favor he had won from 
the monks and clergy. 

Edward the Confessor, St. (1004-1066), King of England. 
He was canonized by Pope Alexander III. in 1161. His festival 
was first kept on his death-day, January 5, but later was trans- 
ferred to October 13, in honor of the solemn translation of his 
body performed in 1163 by Thomas a Becket in the presence of 
Henry II. The National Council of Oxford in 1222 ordered this 
feast to be kept in England as a holy day. 

King Edward succeeded his half-brother Hardicanute on the 
English throne in 1042. Shortly after his accession he married 
Edith, daughter of Earl Godwin, who proved an unruly subject 
and a refractory father-in-law. But in the end Edward tri- 
umphed over all opposition, rather by winning gentleness than by 
any great strength of character. He relieved his subjects of the 
Danish tax. Legend explains that after gathering a large part 



376 CURIOSITIES OF 

of it he saw the devil dancing upon the receipts, and so decided 
that it was unholy, tjle founded Westminster Abbey in 1049, 
and was the first to be buried there, as he died the year after 
its consecration. His wife Edith was subsequently buried with 
him. CBoth declared that though married they had respected 
each other's virginity.' Hence the Church has always looked 
upon the couple as models of saintly purity. He reposes in a 
noble mausoleum which was substituted by Henry II. for the 
plain sarcophagus in which the body was originally deposited. 

Edward was tbe first English king to touch scrofulous sores 
and swellings. (See Touching.) Many came to him, and 
every one who asserted that he was healed was rewarded with a 
gold medal. On his death-bed the king gave his ring to the 
Abbot of Westminster, who kept it as a precious relic and foimd 
that it cured the falling sickness. Subsequently it passed to the 
chapel of Havering (so called from this very possession), near 
Eumford, in Essex. This had been one of his hunting-seats. 
His successors on the English throne used to bless rings on Good 
Frida}^ against cramp and falling sickness. Out of respect to 
the memory of St. Edward, the kings of England have always 
kept up the custom at their coronation of putting on his dalmatic 
and maniple as part of the royal robes. The crown itself still 
bears his name, though a new one was long since substituted. 

On October 13, 1885, a curious scene was enacted before St. 
Edward's shrine in Westminster Abbey, which proved the pre- 
cedent for similar ones afterwards. A large congregation had 
been present at the high mass said by Cardinal Manning in the 
Catholic church of St. Edward. The sermon was for the most 
part a consideration of the probabilities of the return of the 
English nation to the Roman Catholic faith. At its close a pil- 
grimage was organized in furtherance of this object to the shrine 
of the Confessor. At the request of the cardinal, the appearance 
of a demonstration was avoided as far as possible, but the sud- 
den inroad of the band of devotees indulging in adoration at the 
tomb of the historic saint excited general curiosity. The vergers 
and authorities of the Abbey did not interfere with the visitors, 
who finally retired in good order, but the question of the pro- 
priety of the affair was immediately taken into consideration 
by the dean and chapter. It was decided, however, to take no 
action in the matter. 

Effigy, Burning or Hanging in. In modern times, even in 
the most civilized countries, the hanging or burning of a figure 
made out of straw or wood, dressed up to imitate some unpopular 
personage, is a favorite method of expressing the scorn and loath- 
ing of a mob. Many Presidents, generals, and politicians in the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



377 



United States have been the objects of this form of contumely. 
Two remarkable examples of the annual recurrence for centuries 
of this vicarious punishment are afforded in the burning of Gruy 
Fawkes (q. v.) in England, and of Judas (q. v.) in Portuguese 
countries. Benedict Arnold was treated in the same way in 
Philadelphia and New York for many successive years after the 
Eevolution as a part of the Fourth of July festivities. Giant 
Pope in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries used to be 
burned on the anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth 
in England. The custom is a survival from a more brutal super- 
stition of ancient and mediaeval times, that the individual whose 
effigy was offered up suffered pain or death in his own proper 
person as a result. 




--— -^ -^— -^* 



Burning Benedict Aknold in Effigy. 
(From an old Philadelphia print.) 

Among the Greeks, as we learn from Theocritus, the sorcerers 
killed their enemies by magic rites performed over an ef^gy of 
the person who had offended them. 

Yirgil's lines, too, will be remembered, where not death but 
love is to be obtained through the mediation of the clay and wax 
images : 

As fire this image hardens, made of clay, 
And this of wax with fire consumes away, 
Such let the soul of cruel Daphnis be, 



In the days of witchcraft persecution one of the most frequent 
charges was that the witches made waxen images of tfieir ene- 
mies which they melted before a fire and so caused the dissolu- 
tion of the originals. 

In Japan the ef^gy is still regarded as a means of punishment 
to faithless lovers. 

" The maiden who is jilted," we are told by Mr. A. B. Mitford, 



378 CURIOSITIES OF 

in " Tales of Old Japan," " rises at two o'clock in the morning, 
dresses herself in white, and carries a little straw figure— the 
effigy of the faithless one — to the sacred grove around some 
Shinto shrine. The trees are supposed to be under the special 
protection of the god to whom the shrine is dedicated, and any 
injury done to them arouses him to vengeance. Taking the effigy 
in her left hand, and hammer in the right, she sacrilegiously nails 
the figure to one of the holy trees, praying the god to slay the 
traitorous youth, and vowing that if he grant her prayer she 
will pull out the nails which ofi'end the god by w^ounding his 
consecrated tree. Night after night she strikes in two or more 
nails, believing that every nail will shorten her unfaithful lover's 
life, because the god will be sure at the last, in order to save his 
tree, to strike the young man dead." 

In France, up to the time of the first Eevolution, execution by 
Q^gj was a solemn legal institution. M. Bourcher d'Argis, an 
assistant of Diderot and D'Alembert in the " Encyclopedic," tries 
to find an explanation of this in the custom which Plutarch 
mentions of substituting an effigy for the person to be sacrificed 
at a triumph. 

In France, at the time of Louis VI., in the beginning of the 
twelfth century, punishment by effigy was exercised in the case 
of Thomas de Marne, who was a foe of the bishops and con- 
demned by the monarch for high treason. The Ordonnance 
Criminelle of 1670 permitted punishment by effigy ox\\j when the 
criminal was condemned to death. When the criminal was con- 
demned to the galleys, perpetual banishment, the lash, or the 
wheel, and took to flight, his name and crime were to be written 
on a card and set up in some public place as a warning to the 
people and as a means of disgracing him. This is analogous to 
the Greek punishment of the stele. IJnder the same ordonnance, 
if a criminal condemned to death managed to make his escape, his 
effigy was delivered into the ptison, the executioner entered the 
cell with his escort and the apparatus of punishment, and the 
figure was led to the place of punishment and solemnly executed. 
It is possible that under this law there was a provision that there 
should be but one Q^gj, although prior to this date, in the year 
1639, the Duke of La Yalette, who was condemned to the block, 
was beheaded in three different cities, Paris, Bordeaux, and 
Bayonne, on the same day. The criminal, meanwhile, was safe 
in England. 

At the time of the Eevolution the legal punishment by effigy 
was abolished, but the burning and hanging of representations 
of objects of popular hatred continued. In Kheims, for instance, 
in 1793, the Pope, the " coalesced tyrants," and La Fayette were 
all burned together in effigy at the Revolution Feast. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 379 

In the Low Countries the same custom of popular vengeance 
prevailed, and Catholic and Protestant burned each other in 
effigy with fierce theologic zeal. The confessor of Charles Y. 
was convicted of heresy by the Inquisition, but died before sen- 
tence could be pronounced upon him, and his crime was punished 
by a burning of his doll counterfeit. 

In England, on the first anniversary of Restoration Day, which 
celebrated the restoration of the monarchy and of the Church, 
there was great activity in effigy-punishment. The Kingdom's 
Intelligencer and the Mercurius Fublicus announce that on the 
29th of May, 1661, at Bury St. Edmund's, the common hang- 
man led the ef^gy of the courageous and eccentric Parliamen- 
tarian chaplain, Hugh Peters, followed by the entire populace, 
and the common beadle whipped it through the streets. At 
Halesworth, Oliver Cromwell was pilloried in effigy and after- 
wards burned in a bonfire of five hundred fagots. At Exeter 
"a counterfeit of the Covenanter" was drawn to the gibbet " on 
a poor jade." At Reading the Covenant itself was incarcerated 
as soon as condemned by Parliament, and kept in prison until 
the 29th of May, when it was dragged through the streets by a 
rope and burned in the market-place. ' 

So late as 1756, at Gateshead, Sunderland, Shields, and ^N'ew- 
castle, in England, the luckless Admiral Byng was hanged and 
burned in effigy. In the last-named place the figure was drawn 
through the streets on a donkey, with the legend, " This is the 
villain that would not fight;" after which it was hanged on a 
gallows, mutilated, and finally burned. 

In the time of Louis XY. the Princess of Monaco was a lady 
who loved much and many. But among the many her own 
husband was not included. She would not even live with the 
latter, preferring the artificial delights of Yersailles to the nat- 
ural beauties of Monaco. He nevertheless kept himself informed 
about her goings-on, and found a solace in erecting gibbets all 
around his principality whereon he hanged effigies of his wife's 
lovers. The principality was small (though larger then than it 
is now), and the number of courtiers who enjoyed the favors 
of the prince's flighty spouse was very great: so that finally 
the gibbeted effigies formed a continuous line all along the 
frontier. 

Famous are the wax effigies preserved in Westminster Abbey 
in a little oratory above the Ishp chapel. These are mementos 
of a strange old-time ceremony. Long ago, when some great 
personage died, it was the custom to model a representation of 
the deceased, dressed as in life, which was carried in the funeral 
procession. After the burial the effigy was set up in church, as 
a temporary monument. One odd feature of the practice was 



380 CURIOSITIES OF 

that during the time that the effigy was on exhibition it was 
customary to affix to it, by means of paste or pins, short poems or 
epitaphs complimentary to the person represented. In the case 
of a sovereign the statue was usually left in position for a month 
only, though after Charles II. died his wax figure stood for two 
centuries over his tomb in the chapel of Henry YII., and was 
the only monument he had. 

The royal effigies in Westminster date back to the fourteenth 
century ; but all the oldest ones are so mutilated and defaced 
that they are not shown. Many of them were of wood, and 
have been wantonly stripped of the rich garments which they 
wore. About a dozen of the later figures are still preserved, 
each standing stiffly in a glass case by itself, and, decked as they 
are in faded silk and tarnished tinsel, they form so startling a 
contrast to their stately marble successors on the tombs below 
that it seems as if the coming up of this one short flight of steps 
had translated the visitor from the consecrated atmosphere of 
the Abbey into the vulgar air of Madame Tussaud's establish- 
ment. 

The oldest figure is that of Charles II. It is dressed in the 
blue and red velvet robeS of the Garter, trimmed with superb 
old point lace. By his side, in another case, is the figure of 
General Monk, clad in armor. The head of the figure is now 
bare, but it originally wore the famous cap mentioned in the 
" Ingoldsby Legends :" 

I thought on Naseby, Marston Moor, and "Worcester's crowning fight, 
When on mine ear a sound there fell, it filled me with affright, 
As thus in low, unearthly tones I heard a voice begin : 
" This here's the cap of Gen'ral Monk ! Sir, please put summat in." 

In the last century the vergers, when showing these figures 
to visitors, came to use this cap as a gentle hint that their none 
too large wages might be acceptably increased by a small coin 
dropped into it. Goldsmith, who has recorded an account of his 
visit to the Abbey, says of this cap, in an account of a con- 
versation with the verger who was his guide, " ' Pray, friend, 
what might this cap have cost originally ?' ' That, sir,' says 
he, 'I don't know ; but this cap is all the wages I have for my 
trouble.' " 

The two latest figures, those of the Earl of Chatham and 
Admiral Nelson, were unquestionably put in by the officers of 
the Abbey merely for show purposes, to increase the attractive- 
ness of the exhibit. That of Lord Nelson is interesting from 
the fact that it is dressed in a suit of clothes which the admiral 
once wore. There seems good reason to believe this to be true, 
since when Maclise borrowed the figure as a model while he was 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 381 

painting his famous painting " The Death of Nelson" he found 
attached to the lining of the hat the eye-patch without which 
the admiral, who was blind in one eye, never appeared. 

Einsiedeln, Black Virgin of. A miraculous image of the 
Virgin, whose shrine in the church at Einsiedeln, Switzerland, 
attracts a vast concourse of pilgrims on the great annual festival 
of September 14. The founder of Einsiedehi (literally, " a her- 
mitage") was St. Meinrad, Count of Sulgen (797-861), a Ilohen- 
zollern, and an ancestor of the present Emperor of Germany. 
Studious, pious, and gentle, he shrank from the world, and passed 
from one cloister to another, and finally, as an " einsiedler" or 
hermit, retired to a little hut built for him by a pious lady on a 
lonely peak of the Etzelberg. Driven thence by the increasing 
number of those who sought his advice and help, he retreated to 
the then wild forests of the Finsterwald, and made his cell where 
now the great church and convent stand, risen in abundant har- 
vest from the little seed of good. Here he received in solemn 
gift from Hildegarde, foundress and abbess of the great Zurich 
convent, and daughter of King Louis, the grandson of Charle- 
magne, a sacred image of the Virgin and Child, which from the 
ninth century to the present day has reigned at Einsiedeln. 

On September 14, 861, he was murdered in his cell by two rob- 
bers seeking for imaginary treasures. Tracked by two ravens 
which the saint had kept, the assassins were detected, and were 
tried and executed at Zurich, where, in memory of ^this miracle, 
long stood the Eaven's Hotel, now the Hotel Bilharz. The thou- 
sandth anniversary of the saint's death was celebrated with 
great pomp at Einsiedeln in 1861. 

A convent was founded here in the year 900. Grradually, too, 
a great church rose above and enclosed the little chapel with the 
sacred image. In 948 Conrad, Bishop of Constance, came, with 
an immense train of priests and nobles, to consecrate the finished 
building. At midnight before September 14, the day fixed for 
the ceremony, he went to the church to spend the early hours in 
prayer; but at the door he was stayed by the sound of heavenly 
music, and, looking in, beheld a multitude of angels going 
through all the forms of consecration. In the Virgin's chapel 
he saw our Lord officiating in priestly dress, surrounded and 
assisted by saints ; before the altar stood the Blessed Virgin, 
robed in light. The vision faded with the dawn ; but Conrad, 
spellbound, knelt in the same spot till midday, in spite of en- 
treaties to begin the service. Then he told what he had seen ; 
but the}^ held it for a dream, and urged him to proceed to the 
consecration. As he at last did so, a voice spoke from above, 
thrice repeating, " Brother, stay ; the chapel is consecrated by 



382 CURIOSITIES OF 

God." Then, with reverence, they forbore their persuasions, and 
Conrad consecrated only the great church which stood over the 
chapel. 

Such is the legend of the " Engelweihe." Sixteen years later 
Conrad went, with the Emperor Otho I., to Eome, and laid before 
Leo YIII. the question whether the chapel should receive regu- 
lar consecration. This, after consultation with many bishops, 
the Pope decided against, acknowledging as valid the miraculous 
work of the angels. 

Great, after this, were the glories of Einsiedeln. Emperors 
and kings sent rich gifts and made over land. Abbot Gregory, 
nephew of the English King Alfred, and brother-in-law of Otho 
the Great, was created a prince of the Empire, which dignit}', by 
a further decree of Eudolph of Hapsburg, descended to his sue 
cessors ; they are prince-abbots to the present day. Distinguished 
pilgrims flocked to Einsiedeln. Otho the Great was there in 
965, the Emperor Sigismund in 1417, Ferdinand III. in 1442 ; 
St. Nicholas came in 1480, St. Charles Borromeo in 1576. The 
visitors' list is nine centuries long, and rich in the names of 
princes. Marie Louise came in 1814; Queen Hortense came 
year by year, and hither brought her son Louis to receive his 
first communion. The Bourbon princes came in 1859, the Or- 
leans in 1863. The Catholic members of the Hohenzollern 
family visit frequently the foundation of their holy ancestor St. 
Meinrad. 

Yet, for all these royal favors, Einsiedeln has had times of 
trouble. Many times has it been robbed or burnt in the conflicts 
of the adjacent cantons. Worst of all, the French army came 
there in 1798, and, after their unfaiKng habit in those days, car- 
ried off all they could, and burnt the rest. Even the sacred 
image they packed up and sent home ; but the monks, forewarned 
of the coming danger, had hidden away the true Virgin, and it 
was a counterfeit which travelled to Paris. The real image wan- 
dered long, into various graves : buried first at Alpthal, then at 
Haggenegg, next it travelled across the Bhine to Bludenz, then 
b}' sea to Trieste, later to Bludenz again. In some places where 
it had been concealed the peasants built chapels to commemorate 
the fact. At length, in 1802, it was brought back in triumph to 
its ancient home. 

Since that time the pilgrimages have been kept up uninter- 
ruptedly. Baedeker estimates that the pilgrims who come from 
Switzerland, Bavaria, Suabia, Baden, and Alsace number about 
one hundred and fifty thousand annually. Strangely enough, 
few tourists visit the j)lace, though it lies in the most frequented 
part of Switzerland. A writer in Macmillan's Magazine who 
was present at the great September festival in 1891 says that 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 383 

bis own party comprised the only English present. His ad- 
mirable description of the scene is here condensed : 

" The Platz, where the ceremonies of the daj^ were to take 
place, was a space like in shape and size to Trafalgar jSquare, 
though rather larger, and, like Trafalgar Square, planting 
down-hill. At the upper side stand the long lines of the con- 
vent, straight and monotonous, and in their centre the church, 
double-towered, of immense size but no very beautiful design. 
In front of these the ground is raised to form a level terrace, 
which is approached in the centre by a broad flight of steps, 
and under the brow of which arcades are built stretching down 
to right and left in a broad semicircle. At the lower side the 
Platz is bounded by a line of hotels. As we saw the scene, on a 
bright cloudless day, it was very attractive. The pilgrims were 
everywhere, — clustered round the arcades, swarming up and 
down the steps, leaning over the balustrades at the terrace edge. 
And, lest the word 'pilgrim' should suggest 'travel-stained gar- 
ments' and ' sorrowful countenances,' it must be added that they 
looked a well-contented set of holiday-makers ; though, as they 
were Swiss, without much vivacity or personal beauty. There 
were traces of picturesque costume among the women. The 
men were, as usual, soberly dressed. 

" A large fountain is in the centre of the Platz, whence, by 
fourteen separate spouts, water flows out and splashes on the 
pavement round. The legend is that from one of these our Lord 
once drank, but which one is not known : so we saw the more 
devout among the pilgrims gravely going all round and drinking 
from every spout in succession. One old man had a ginger- 
beer bottle, which he was gradually filling up with a few drops 
from each of the fourteen spouts. 

" We went on to the church, and found it very big and gaudily 
bright. The side aisles were, as usual, occupied with numerous 
chapels ; and for this high festival the relics were exposed on 
every altar. There, through a glass side in every coflin, we saw 
the withered bodies of saints and martyrs, wreathed about with 
strings of beads, flowers, and gilt ornaments; the outline of the 
features traced in pearls, rings put on the fingers, a crown on the 
head, and the instrument of martyrdom laid in the clinched hand. 

" Standing in the centre of the nave, facing the west door, was 
the famous angel-consecrated chapel, crowded aboutwith pilgrims. 
It was made of black marble, and, like a great birdcage, shut in 
behind, and partly at the sides, and wired round the front with 
iron rails, through which, as through prison-bars, we saw the 
lighted altar, and above ' Maria Einsiedeln' herself, so swathed 
and sunk in cloth of gold, lace, and satin that onlj- the faces of 
the Virgin and Child were visible ; all jet black, as it apparently 



384 CURIOSITIES OF 

behooves ancient and sacred images to be. The rest of the tiny- 
edifice was wreathed witli paper flowers and covered with scarlet 
and white inscriptions in German, — pious rhymes mostly, about 
the angel-consecration. 

" As it grew dusk, the aspect of the church was very strange. 
Each chapel was besieged by a little crowd : women swaying to 
and fro, as they passed the rosary beads through their slow 
fingers; some few ecstatic, kneeling with outstretched arms; 
some in groups, a large family or party of friends, were making 
the round of the chapels, pausing to repeat at each their monot- 
onous rote of prayers. The sacred chapel was pressed on from 
all sides ; hundreds of votive offerings were strung on the iron 
bars, long rows of lighted tapers were stuck on the ledge below, 
and pilgrims knelt all round, while old women, asleep from sheer 
fatigue, rested their heads against its walls. Nor was there the 
usual silence of Eoraan Catholic churches, for the low hum of 
praying voices was rising like a storm, in a strange, monotonous, 
wordless way, coming one hardly knew whence or how, and 
beating all on one wailing note. 

" We saw them begin to illuminate the church. It was a curi- 
ous eff'ect when, at the end of the long dark vista, a brilliant 
fiery cross glided slowly up from the ground and hung suspended 
over the high altar. Outside, when all was complete, the scene 
was one hard to describe, harder still to forget. Every available 
place was illuminated uniformly with small, clear oil-lamps. 
With their soft golden lustre, the lower line of every window in 
the long convent fagade was traced out, displaying the rare 
beauty of a great concerted illumination, falling in regular 
ordered lines. The church porch was very brilliant, massed 
round with lamps, and surmounted by the sacred monogram 
and a large cross. Moreover, the arcades, the hotels below, and 
all the houses within sight Avere traced with the same lustrous 
golden lines ; and high on the hills a large brilliant cross seemed 
in the darkness to float in the air. In the lower right-hand part 
of the Platz was a great altar. Behind stood an illuminated 
transparent picture of the Madonna, and above this a smaller 
sketch of angels' heads; the golden-tinted lamps surrounded 
both with a deep border, tracing out arches and pillars of light. 
The altar was raised on steps covered with scarlet cloth ; it faced 
the cathedral with all the wide stretch of the Platz between, 
and seemed to wait, as the multitude of people were waiting, for 
what was to come. 

" Inside the church there was now scarcely standing-room. 
The gallery was traced round with lamps. Behind the choir- 
screen all was brilliant light, figures moving to and fro, clouds 
of incense floating up, dimming the gorgeous vestments of the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 385 

oflSoiating priests, broken pieces of chant caught up and an- 
swered by an organ at the further end of the church. Last 
came the solemn elevation of the host ; and then the gates were 
opened, and slowly down the centre of the church moved the 
long-expected procession. First the chanting choristers with 
lighted tapers ; next the bishops, priests, visitors, a hundred or 
more ; and then, under a splendid canopy, in traihng robes stiif 
with gold, came the prince-abbot, bearing in a high jewelled 
chalice the consecrated host ; and, as he passed, all fell on their 
knees or bowed to the very ground. 

" I wish, and hopelessly wish, I could describe the scene on 
the Platz. It was a perfect summer night, with neither moon 
nor cloud, and the dark dome of the sky seemed to quiver with 
the multitude of the stars. The convent and the church, the 
arcades and the hotels, all were sketched out with long, brilliant 
lines of light ; the great cross on the distant hill, with no visible 
standing-point, looked like a new wonder of the heavens. On 
every side, silent and bareheaded, some ten thousand people were 
waiting ; and what they waited for was coming, — a long proces- 
sion with glimmering lines of tapers slowly moving out from 
the church doors, across the terrace, down the steps, then curving 
round towards the illuminated altar. As the abbot came out of 
the church, the low chant of the choristers was caught up by a 
sudden burst of military music ; as he passed down, the close- 
pressing lines of people knelt on both sides. He came to the 
altar, and there praj^ed, under the starlit sky, with bishops, in 
vestments only less gorgeous than his own, grouped round him. 
In the balcony of a house near was a picturesque band of priests 
with various instruments, and of choristers who accompanied 
the service with some beautiful mass-music; the effect was 
heightened by the soft, distant tones of a hidden organ, which 
filled every interval. As if to leave no emotion untouched, one 
was startled now and then by the sudden thunder of cannon 
from the hills behind. The climax came when the music was 
hushed, and, amid such silence that his every tone was heard, 
the prince-abbot turned round to the people, and, three times 
raising the host on high, three times blessed them in the Holy 
Name, while three times, as he paused between, the tolling 
sound of the cannon shook the air, and the whole multitude 
knelt on the ground, as if a sudden gentle wind were passing 
over a field and bending every blade of grass. 

" Then the procession was formed again, and made its way 
back to the church." 

Eisteddfod. (Welsh, " a session," " a sitting." The plural is 
Eisteddfodan.) A national congress of Welsh bards and musi- 

25 



386 CURIOSITIES OF 

cians, whose objects are to encourage the music, poetry, and gen- 
eral literature of Wales, to sustain ancient customs and traditions, 
and to foster a patriotic spirit. The institution in its modern form 
dates from the time of Owain ap Maxen Wledig, chief sovereign 
of the Britons at the close of the fourth century. But it did not 
receive its modern name until about the twelfth century. A 
congress of this sort held in the sixth century under the auspices 
of Maelgwn Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales, is especially 
noted in early Welsh history on account of a trick played by 
that wily potentate* He had undertaken to prove the superiority 
of vocal over instrumental music. So he offered a reward to 
such bards and minstrels as should swim over the Conway. Of 
course the minstrels found on arriving at the; opposite shore that 
the strings of their harps were hopelessly out of tune, while the 
vocal cords of the bards were uninjured. 

The Eisteddfodan of the early and middle ages were held 
every three years. No one could be accounted a bard unless he 
had passed with approval through an Eisteddfod ; nothing could 
be accounted poetry save under its rules. Bard and harpist were 
sternly differentiated ; the two professions could not be united in 
one man. But these high standards could not be maintained 
forever. Gradually abuses crept in. By the time of Queen 
Elizabeth they had become intolerable. From a royal proclama- 
tion issued in her reign it appears that " expert mynstrells and 
musicons" had grown so scarce, and sham " Eithmors and 
Barthes" so plentiful, that the whole tribe were summoned to 
appear on a certain day " to shew forth their learnings" before 
"such expert men in ye faculte of Welsh musick as shall be 
thought convenient." Those found unworthy were to be com- 
manded " that they returne to some honest labor such as they be 
most apte unto, upon pain to be taken as sturdie vagabonds." 
As a result of this proclamation the bardic congresses were dis- 
continued for about two hundred years. They were revived in 
the eighteenth century with great and lasting enthusiasm. At 
present the national Eisteddfodan are held annually, alternately 
in North and in South Wales. They are under the patronage of 
the highest in the land, beginning with the sovereign, and the 
judges are sought for among the most distinguished and com- 
petent in their respective departments. 

The modern Eisteddfod has a very wide scope. It includes 
competitions in poetry, prose essay, fiction, and translation, and 
in the composition and performance of music. The prizes range 
from two hundred and fifty pounds to one pound. In the United 
States the Eisteddfod is almost exclusively a musical festival. A 
few recitations are always on the programme, but the poem and 
the essay rarely find a place there. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 387 

Welsh-Americans who wish to attain the rank of bard must 
send their work to Wales. If a sufficient number are found 
deserving of honors, and if they are unable lo cross the ocean to 
receive them, a commission of bards comes over here and bestows 
the bardic accolade. The attendant ceremonies are performed in 
a circle of stones. A book of runes is read aloud, an ancient 
sword is laid upon the shoulders of the kneeling candidate, and 
a bit of blue ribbon (the nineteenth-century survival of the blue 
robe with which the bard was anciently invested) is presented to 
him, to be tied in a knot in his button-hole. 

Elephant, Lord White. An elephant of uniform white, or 
rather gray, which is honored in Burmah as a minister of state 
of semi-divine attributes. He has a palace or state apartment, 
with a humbler every- day residence, and sheds for the vulgar 
herd of the same species, and brick godowns in which the state 
carriages and golden litters are stowed away. He is a regular 
" estate of the realm," having a woon or minister of his own, 
four gold umbrellas, — the white umbrellas which are peculiar to 
royalty, — with a suite of attendants said to be thirty in number. 
Like many other sinecurists and " estates of the realm," he does 
not seem to flourish much under his dignities, but would doubt- 
less be a happier elephant if he could exchange his palace and 
his umbrellas for coverts, forests, and overhanging trees. The 
possession of a white elephant is a sort of ensign of universal 
sovereignty, and the discovery of one is hailed as a good and 
happy omeu for a reign. The slightest blemish, however, — a few 
black hairs in the tail, or some such matter, — at once mars its 
claims to sanctity. 

Elizabeth's Day, Queen. The 17th of November, as the 
anniversary of the accession of the.yirgin Queen to the English 
throne (1558), was formerly celebrated in England as emphati- 
cally a Protestant holiday. The custom appears to have begun 
in the twelfth year of her reign (1570), and to have been kept 
up intermittently for over a century, — whenever the anti-Popery 
sentiment proved particularly rampant. Eventually it was 
merged into Guy Fawkes's Day, which had borrowed some of its 
characteristics. The main feature of the day was a procession 
of mummers bearing an ef^gj of the Pope in a chair of state, 
behind which stood a masker dressed as the devil, who lavished 
affectionate caresses upon His Holiness. In Queen Anne's time 
an effigy of the Pretender was added to that of the Pope. The 
festivities wound up by the burning of the effigy or effigies amid 
great rejoicings. 

During the reigns of James I. and Charles I. the close proximity 



388 CURIOSITIES OF 

of Guy Fawkes's Day, on November 5, caused the suspension of 
the Pope-burnings, but in the years 1679-1681, when the murder 
of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey and the pretended discovery by 
Titus Gates of tlie Popish Plot had aroused a frenzy of excite- 
ment, they were revived as a welcome opportunity for reduphca- 
tion of Protestant zeal. A rare pamphlet, " London's Defiance 
to Eome," quoted in Chambers's " Book of Days," vol. ii. p. 588, 
describes " the magnificent procession and solemn burning of the 
Pope at Temple Bar, November 17, 1679." We learn that " the 
bells generally about the town began to ring about three o'clock 
in the morning ;" but the great procession was deferred till night, 
when "the whole was attended with one hundred and fifty flam- 
beaus and lights, bj^ order; but so many more came in volun- 
teers, as made up some thousands. ... At the approach of 
evening (all things being in readiness), the solemn procession 
began, setting forth from Moorgate, and so passing first to Aid- 
gate, and thence through Leadenhall Street, by the Eoyal Ex- 
change, through Cheapside, and so to Temple Bar, Never were 
the balconies, windows, and houses more numerously lined, or 
the streets closer thronged, with multitudes of ])eople, all ex- 
pressing their abhorrence of popery with continued shouts and 
exclamations, so that 'tis modestly computed that, in the whole 
progress, there could not be fewer than two hundred thousand 
spectators." The way was cleared by six pioneers in caps and 
red waistcoats, followed by a bell-man bearing his lantern and 
stafl', and ringing his bell, crying out all the way in a loud but 
dolesome voice, " Eemember Justice Godfrey !" He was followed 
by a man on horseback, dressed like a Jesuit, carrying a dead 
body before him, "representing Justice Godfrey, in like manner 
as he was carried by the assassins to Primrose Hill." It will be 
remembered that Godfrey was a Jjondon magistrate, before whom 
Titus Gates had made his first deposition. He was found mur- 
dered in the fields at the back of Primrose Hill with a sword run 
tiirough his body to make it appear that by falling upon it 
intentionally he had committed suicide. But wounds in other 
parts of his person, and undeniable marks of strangulation, 
testified to the fact that he had been murdered, and it required 
only a slight stretch of the Protestant imagination to conjure up 
pictures of monks and priests as his assassins. 

Another performer in the procession was habited as a priest, 
" giving pardons very plentifully to all those that should murder 
Protestants, and proclaiming it meritorious." He was followed 
by a train of other priests, and " six Jesuits with bloody daggers ;" 
then, by way of relief, came " a consort of wind-musick." This 
was succeeded by a long array of Catholic church dignitaries, 
ending with " the Pope, in a lofty glorious pageant, representing 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 389 

a chair of state, covered with scarlet, richly embroidered and 
fringed, and bedecked with golden balls and crosses." At his 
feet were two boys with censers, " at his back his holiness's privy- 
councillor (the degraded seraphim, Anglice, the devil), frequently 
caressing, hugging, and whispering him, and ofttimes instructing 
him aloud to destroy his majesty, to forge a Protestant plot, and 
to fire the city again, to which purpose he held an infernal torch 
in his hand." When the procession reached the foot of Chancery 
Lane, in Fleet Street, it came to a stop; "then, having enter- 
tained the thronging spectators for some time with the ingenious 
fireworks, a vast bonfire being prepared just over against the 
Inner Temple gate, his holiness, after some compliments and 
reluctances, was decently toppled from all his grandeur into the 
impartial flames ; the crafty devil leaving his infallibilityship in 
the lurch, and laughing as heartily at his deserved ignominious 
end as subtle Jesuits do at the ruin of bigoted lay Catholics whom 
they have themselves drawn in." This concluding feat was 
greeted by " a prodigious shout, that might be heard far beyond 
Somerset House," where Queen Catherine was lodged at that 
time ; but the ultra-Protestant author of this pamphlet, anxious 
to make the most of the public lungs, declares " 'twas believed 
the echo, by continued reverberations before it ceased, reached 
Scotland, France, and even Rome itself, damping them all with 
a dreadful astonishment." 

This show proved so immensely popular that it was repro- 
duced in succeeding years, with additional political pageantry. 

In 1683, however, it was suppressed through royal influence 
brought to bear upon the mayor, who was a mere creature of 
Charles II. during the temporary suppression of the City charter. 
"Thus ended these Diavolarias," comments Roger North. 

ISTot yet, however, had they received their final quietus. During 
the excitement caused in Que^n Anne's reign by the claims of 
the High Church party under Dr. Sacheverell and the fear of the 
Pretender, sporadic efi'orts were made for the revival of the 
pageants. Efligies of the Pope, the Pretender, and the devil 
were in fact publicly burnt, although the vigilance of the police 
prevented the general observance of the day which was planned 
in 1711 and again in 1713. These minor celebrations are alluded 
to in an epigram by one Bishop, quoted in Sir Henry Ellis's 
notes to Brand's " Popular Antiquities :" 

Qu^RB Peregrinum. 

Three strangers blaze amidst a bonfire's revel : 
The Pope, and the Pretender, and the Devil. 
Three strangers hate our faith, and faith's defender: 
The Devil, and the Pope, and the Pretender 



390 CURIOSITIES OF 

Three strangers will be strangers long, we hope : 
The Devil, and the Pretender, and the Pope. 
Thus, in three rhymes, three strangers dance the hay : 
And he that chooses to dance after them may. 

A correspondent of Notes and Queries (Fii'st Series, vol. iv. p. 
345) says that when he was at Christ's Hospital a curious custom 
prevailed on Queen Elizabeth's Day : " Two or more boys would 
take one against whom they had any spite or grudge, and, having 
lifted him by the arms and legs, would bump him on the hard 
stones of the cloisters." He believes that the bumpee repre- 
sented the Pope or one of his emissaries, and the bumpers stout 
and loyal Protestants. (See Stone of Infamy for an analogous 
Italian ceremony with a totally different meaning.) 

Elizabeth of Hungary, St. (It. Elisaheta de Ungheria ; Sp. 
Isabel.) Her festival is celebrated on November 19, the anni- 
versary of her death. St. Elizabeth (1207-1231) was the daugh- 
ter of Alexander II., King of Hungary. Being betrothed at 
the age of four years to Louis, son of the Landgrave of Thu- 
ringia, she was sent to that court to be brought up. When she 
was nine years old the landgrave died, and the government 
passed to his wife during the minority of Louis. The land- 
gravine disliked Elizabeth and treated her with contumelj'. 
When Louis was twenty years of age the nuptials took place. 
But her accession to royal rank did not swerve her from the life 
of asceticism and good works to which she had vowed herself 
Legend asserts that once as she was proceeding to a state ban- 
quet a beggar appealed to her charity and she took off her royal 
mantle and gave it to him. Just as she was confessing to her 
husband what she had done, her maid came bearing her mantle, 
which was found hanging in her wardrobe. The legend has it 
that the beggar was Christ himself. On another occasion, it is 
related, St. Elizabeth found a poor leprous child, and took it 
in her arms and laid it in her own bed. The landgravine was 
enraged, and called Louis to see, but when the latter came he 
found instead of a leper a radiant infant who smiled on him 
and vanished. These legends are obvious variants of the more 
famous miracle of the Roses. 

At one season there was a great scarcity of crops throughout 
the land, and caution and economy in the use of the royal stores 
had been advised even in the palace. Elizabeth could not bear 
to know of unrelieved suffering among her people ; so, by close 
economy in her own wants, she managed to furnish food for 
many others. On one occasion a very pressing case of necessity 
reached her ; and, not wishing to encourage her servants in dis- 
obedience to the general command, she started alone on her 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 391 

errand of mercy, with some lighter articles of food concealed in 
the folds of her dress. Just as she reached the foot of the stairs, 
however, she met her husband, with several gentlemen, return- 
ing from the chase. Astonished to see his wife alone and thus 
burdened, he asked her to show him what she was carrying; 
but as she held her dress in terror to her breast, he gently dis- 
engaged her hands, and, behold, "it was filled with white and 
red roses, the most beautiful he ever saw." 

In Thuringia to this day there is a species of rose that is uni- 
versally cultivated by the poorest peasant as well as the richest 
landholder ; and if anybody asks of them a question as to its 
origin, the answer is, " Oh, that is the rose of the dear St. Eliza- 
beth, our former queen, and was grown from one of the sprigs 
given to her b}^ the angels." 

In 1226 Louis set out with Frederick Barbarossa for the Holy 
Land, but died on the way. His brother Henrj^ seized the 
government, and drove Elizabeth from the palace. She found 
a shelter for her children, and supported herself by spinning 
wool. When the knights who had accompanied Louis returned 
they dethroned Henry, and made Elizabeth's son, Herman, land- 
grave. The city of Marburg was bestowed on Elizabeth. She 
parted with her children in order to devote herself entirely to 
the religious life, and bound herself to observe the third rule of 
St. Francis. She died November 19, 1231, in the twenty-fourth 
year of her age. She was canonized by Gregory IX. in 1235. 
Her relics were translated to Marburg in 1236, where they were 
enshrined in the church of St. Elizabeth. Philip, Landgrave of 
Hesse, during the Eeformation, removed the relics and buried 
them in some secret spot. The Carmelites of Brussels claim to 
have some of the bones of the saint, and some more are exhibited 
in a shrine at Hanover. Many stories are current of remarkable 
cures effected through the invocation of this saint, and the nuns 
of the third order of St. Francis chose her for their patroness, 
being sometimes known as " the nuns of St. Elizabeth." There 
are many pictures of this saint, the most celebrated of which is 
one by Murillo for the church of La Caritad at Seville. 

Elmo, St. (An Italian corruption, through Sanf Ermo, of 
the name of St. Erasmus.) An Italian bishop of the reign of 
Domitian and Maximin. History has little to say of him, but 
the hagiologies assert that he suffered a cruel martyrdom on the 
wheel, June 2, ad. 304. His death has been a favorite subject 
with artists, Poussin's repulsive yet powerful picture in the 
Vatican and Hans Burgkhmair's equally unpleasant one in Munich 
being the most famous. St. Erasmus, or St. Elmo, has from time 
immemorial been invoked by sailors on the Mediterranean in 



392 CURIOSITIES OF 

time of storms, and the electrical appearances known as St. 
Elmo's fire are held to be signs of his beneficent interference. 
These appearances are most frequently seen in southern climates 
during thunder-storms, and take the form of stars or brushes of 
light at the tops of masts, spires, or other pointed objects. The 
phenomenon was familiar to the Greeks, who when the light was 
double styled the twin flames Castor and Pollux. The general 
superstition that one light is unlucky and two are lucky may 
be traceable to this identification with the Dioscuri. When it 
appears on the deck, however, instead of at the mast-head, it is 
less welcome, and assumes something of the characteristic of a 
corpse-candle. 

Bartolommeo Crescentio says it was called St. Elmo's hght 
because of its reflections on the helms of the soldiers, — which 
only shows that Bartolommeo was a pre-scientific etymologist. 
Varenius, a Dutch writer, knew^ all about it in the spirit of your 
more modern man of science. It was produced by " some sul- 
phurous and bituminous matter which, being beaten down by the 
agitation of the air, is kindled and gathered as butter is gathered 
by the agitation of cream." But other authorities were equally 
sure that it came from " thin, clammy vapors rising from the 
salt seas and ugly slime." 

In modern Greece (and this is curious, considering the old 
Dioscuri belief) it appears to have a wholly evil significance, but 
you can get rid of it there by pulling the tail of a pig. Some- 
times each light had a name, — St. Elmo for the first, and St. 
Nicholas and St. Anne for the second and third. The Chinese, 
with their usual perversity, reverse the European rule about St. 
Elmo. With us, as long as the light is aloft it is a good sign and 
when it descends it is an evil. Those who go down to the sea in 
junks hold the exact contrary. 

Eloy, St. (Lat. Eligius ; Eng. Loo ; It. Aid or Lb, Eligio')^ 
patron saint of Bologna, Dunkerque, and ]^[oyon, and of gold- 
smiths and all other metal-workers (a.d. 588-659). His festival 
is celebrated on December 1, the anniversary of his death. 

St. Eloy was born at the village of Chatelat, two leagues from 
Limoges. He learned the trade of a goldsmith, and evinced such 
talent that he received a commission to make a golden throne 
set with pearls for King Clotaire II. Out of the materials given 
him Eloy made two thrones instead of one, which so pleased the 
king that Eloy was intrusted with affairs of state. Dagobert, 
successor to King Clotaire, made Eloy Master of the Mint, and 
later he was made Bishop of Noyon and Tournay. He was re- 
markable for his eloquence, and was sent to preach in Belgium. 
By some he is held to have been the first to carry the gospel to 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 393 

Sweden and Denmark. Legend relates of him, as of St. Dun- 
stan, that he seized the devil by the nose with a pair of red-hot 
pincers. One of the miracles attributed to this saint is repre- 
sented in the exterior of Or San Michele at P'lorence. A horse 
being brought to him to be shod, which was possessed by the 
devil, he cut off the horse's ]og and put on the shoe ; then he 
made the sign of the cross and replaced the leg. 

When St. Eloy fell ill of his last sickness, the queen Bathildes 
set out from Paris with a numerous retinue, but did not arrive 
at Noyon until the morning after his death. She would have 
taken the body to her monastery at Chelles, but desisted at the 
earnest request of the saint's flock. The body was thereupon 
deposited in the church of St. Lupus of Troyes, soon after called 
St. Eligius's, and later translated to the cathedral of St. Eloy 
at Dunkerque. Queen Bathildes placed a repa or small canopy 
of gold and silver over his tomb, and as it shone very brightly 
it was covered in Lent with a linen cloth bordered with silk. It 
is reported that a certain liquor which dropped from this cloth 
cured various distempers. The head of St. Eloy is in the parish 
church of St. Andre at Chelles. Other relics ai-e at the cathedral 
at Bruges, the church of St. Martin at Tournay, and the church 
of St. Pierre at Douai. In the cathedral at Paris an arm of the 
saint is preserved. In art he is represented as a farrier with a 
horse's leg in his hand. 

Emancipation Day. This was formerly a great festival 
among the colored people of several of the Atlantic and contiguous 
States in the Union, and was celebrated on August 15. The event 
which it commemorated was not the issuing of the Emancipation 
proclamation b}' Abraham Lincoln (September 22. 1862), but the 
earlier emancipation of the slaves in the British West Indies. 
The act of abolition was presented on behalf of the government 
by Lord Stanley on August 28, 1833 ; it was passed by Parliament 
on August 1, 1834, and the proclamation was made on August 15 
of the same year. (There have been no celebrations of Emanci- 
pation Day since the death (circa 1875) of Abe Trower, a colored 
man in the employ of Messrs. Eobbins, of Fulton Market, through 
whose efforts the event was commemorated each August by a 
grand picnic at Myrtle Avenue Park, Brooklyn, that gave the 
cue to colored people in many of the neighboring States. 

Ember Days, known in the ecclesiastical calendar as quattuor 
tempora, because these fasting days recur in each quarter of the 
year. The name may come from the Anglo-Saxon ymbrcn, a 
"revolution" or "circuit," or may be a corruption of tlie Latin 
quattuor tempora. The Dutch quatertemper, (Jerman quatember., 



394 CURIOSITIES OF 

and Danish kvatember exhibit the process of the corruption. The 
Ember Days are recognized by both the Roman and the Angli- 
can Church. The Book of Common Prayer defines them as " days 
of fasting, on which the Church requires such a measure of absti- 
nence as is more especially suited to extraordinary acts and 
exercises of devotion." They occur on the Wednesday, Friday, 
and Saturday after the first Sunday in Lent, and after the feasts 
of Pentecost, of the Exaltation of the Cross, and of St. Lucy. 
The Ember Days were certainly observed in Rome in the time 
of St. Augustine of Hippo. St. Leo ascribes to them an apos- 
tolic origin. As the synagogue regularly observed four fasts 
in the year, — in the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months, — it 
seems not impossible that the apostles should have handed down 
the Jewish custom to the Church. The fasts were introduced 
into England hy its apostle St. Augustine at the end of the sixth 
century. At first the weeks in which the Ember Days occur were 
not definitely fixed, and even in the eleventh century a Gorman 
council speaks of the Ember fast as jejunium incertum. According 
to ancient custom in the Roman Church the clergy are ordained 
only on the Saturdays of the Ember weeks, and in the Anglican 
on the Sundays following. Hence the Ember Days are especially 
a period of preparation for candidates for holy orders. 

Emeric, St. The eldest son of St. Stephen of Hungary, 
commemorated in the calendar on the anniversary of his death, 
November 4, when he was prematurely cut ofif in the lifetime of 
his father. He is associated with the latter in the veneration of 
the Hungarians. His celebrity popularized his name, which in 
the Italianized form of Amerigo was conferred upon the navigator 
Yespucci ; and, as the name of America is generally derived 
from Amerigo, St. Emeric may be looked upon as the eponymic 
patron of America. 

Emmet, Robert. The birthday of this ill-fated Irish pa- 
triot is celebrated in Ireland and (mainly under the auspices of 
the Clan-na-Gael) in New York, Chicago, and other American 
cities. Born March 4, 1778, in Dublin, Emmet in 1803 planned 
an unsuccessful insurrection, and escaped to the Wicklow Moun- 
tains. Returning for a last interview with his sweetheart, Sarah 
Curran (daughter of the famous John Philpot Curran, and hero- 
ine of Moore's song " She is far from the Land" and of Irving's 
story " The Broken Heart"), he was arrested, put on trial on 
September 19, 1803, condemned to death, and hanged on the 
following day. Just before receiving sentence he delivered a 
speech full of the most noble and pathetic eloquence, which is 
still a favorite for recitation. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 395 

In 1896 a double celebration was held in New York at the 
Grand Central Palace under the auspices of the Clan-na-Gael and 
at Cooper Union under the auspices of the Irish Nationalists and 
Irish National Alliance. The orator of the occasion at the first 
was W. Bourke Cockran, at the second John E. Fitzgerald. 
The first regiment of Irish volunteers and the members of the 
69th Eegiment took part in the celebrations, as usual. 

England, Conquest of. This event, which was secured by 
the battle of Hastings, fought on October 14, 1066, between Wil- 
liam, Duke of Normandy, and Harold, King of the Saxons, is 
celebrated annually at Falaise, the birthplace of the Conqueror, 
on September 28, — that being the anniversary of the latter's 
landing on English soil. A writer in Once a TT^eeA: for November 
6, 1875, gives this picture of the festivities as he witnessed them 
in that year : 

"I happened last September to be at Falaise, in Normandy. 
At the station I was met by an immense crowd. William the 
Conqueror had landed in England, and it was certain that we 
should all be vanquished. A hundred blue blouses were shouting 
at the ticket-receiver to know the last train. The young princes 
looked very well in an open cart. Arlette was not there, her 
washing days were over, and Count Eobert was dead. No, I 
have not got a copper for the poor this time. Hotel prices risen ? 
Never mind ; get into the omnibus du Grand Cerf ; give up your 
luggage- ticket to the conducteur before you are hustled to pieces, 
and drive on. Flags on both sides, fir-trees, suddenly trans- 
planted and lining the streets, sound of drums, trumpets, and 
shouting. What is it all about ? 

" I arrive at the ' grand stage.' All heads on both sides out 
of the window. William the Conqueror has just come by ; after 
him went a very large ship with fine green calico waves, and 
oars very much in everybody's way, knights in chain armor, 
seated uneasily on oppressed and recalcitrant horses, and his- 
torical personages mixed up with all sorts of posterity. 

" This is too much ! For once I am indifferent to the price of 
rooms. I fling my travelling bag to the gargon, bolt out of the 
omnibus with an umbrella, — I don't happen to have a halberd 
about me, — and, shouting the. daring war-cry of ' Sauve qui pent F 
which strikes terror into the breasts of all the Norman apple- 
women on the road, I rush down a by-lane in order to intercept 
the procession before it gets to the Place de la Mairie. But just 
in time. A row of horses' tails, wriggling and tossing behind 
the unaccustomed chain armor, show me plainly that the pageant 
has arrived before me. The ship, full of armed men, reels peril- 
ously in front of me and stops. The drums and trumpets cease. 



396 CURIOSITIES OP 

The cavalcade becomes unmanageable. Carts, with counts and 
young princes, and Norman dukes, in flowing silk and velvet, 
and coats of mail, are met astray in all directions. It is clear 
the game is over, and the reign of long-restrained confusion has 
set in. 

" I get a good footing on a curb-stone, collar a terrific and 
truculent Norman, and ask after William the Conqueror. He 
tells me that Britain is a small island; that the Channel is 
a trackless and well-nigh unnavigable ocean; but that Duke 
William, having entered a big pasteboard ship, soon mastered 
both, shot Harold, and set himself down on his throne. Hence 
consumption of cakes and ale, immense slaughter of fat oxen, 
collections for the poor, illuminations at night, and band, ad- 
mission 1 fr." 

Engracia, St. (from the Latin Encratis or Encratides), was 
the daughter of Ont Camerus, to whom the Eomans had given 
the city of Norba Caesarea, in Spain. She was brought up a 
Christian, and while still a young girl was betrothed to a gov- 
ernor on the Gallic side of the Pyrenees and sent to him with 
suitable escort. Their way lay through Csesarea Augusta, the 
modern Saragossa, where the governor, Publius Dacianus, one 
of the bloodiest ministers of the tenth persecution, was at that 
time endeavoring to extirpate Christianity. Engracia visited him 
for the purpose of remonstrating on his cruelty. When Dacia- 
nus learned that she was a Christian he seized her and had 
her put to the torture. Some accounts make her survive the 
rack, but the favorite legend represents her as having fallen a 
victim to torture. Angels are said to have descended at her 
death and to have officiated at her funeral, bearing tapers and 
thuribles and singing hymns of triumph. During the Moorish 
captivity her relics disappeared, but they were discovered in 
1389, during the excavations necessitated by the rebuilding of 
an old church dedicated to the martyrs of Saragossa. Seventy 
years afterwards Juan II. declared that by St. Engracia's inter- 
cession he was cured of a complaint in his eyes, — in consequence 
of which he resolved to enlarge the church and build a monas- 
teiy adjoining it and dedicate the whole to St. Engracia. He 
began the work, but died before completing it, leaving that 
charge by will to his son, Ferdinand, the Catholic King, who 
continued the building, but it was not finished till the reign 
of Charles Y. 

Epiphany. (Gr. ^7Tt<pdv£ia, "manifestation," "appearance.") 
A festival celebrated on January 6, the twelfth day after Christ- 
mas, hence known popularly in England as Twelfth Night. It 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 897 

is the anniversary of three different occasions whereon Christ 
manifested his glory : (1) in his adoration in the manger by 
the three Wise Men from the East, or Magi; (2) in his bap- 
tism, when a voice from heaven proclaimed him the Son of God ; 
(3) in the marriage at Cana, when he began his miracles by 
changing water into wine. 

The word Epiphany, being Greek, establishes the fact that this 
festival is of Eastern origin, and in fact in the Greek Church it 
has always been held the most important next to Easter. The 
first mention of it occurs in the year 200, in the writings of 
Clement of Alexandria. In the fourth century we find that in 
Gaul it was kept as a separate festival from Christmas. There 
is no doubt that in the early days the story of the Wise Men did 
not receive the prominence, in the different instances in which 
Christ manifested himself to the world, that it has now. Indeed, 
it appears from St. Gregory Nazianzen that the baptism of Christ 
was the chief event commemorated on the Epiphany. Hence, 
})robably, the alternative Greek name for the feast, " the holy 
day of lights" (27 dyia rwv <pa>Twv y][xipa)^ which refers to the " illu- 
mination" of baptism, or possibly to an ancient tradition that 
at Christ's baptism lights appeared on the Jordan. However, 
the Breviary hymn for the day, composed by Prudentius in the 
fourth century, proves that the threefold commemoration on the 
Epiphany is ancient in the West. 

In course of time the incident of the Wise Men's visit came to 
be loosed upon as typical of the extension of the gospel to the 
Gentile world, and consequently as of preponderant importance 
to all of Gentile race. By the twelfth century romantic addi- 
tions had been made to the simple Biblical narrative. The un- 
named Wise Men had risen to specific regal rank as Caspar or 
Jaspar, King of Tarsus, the land of myrrh, Melchior, King of 
Arabia, where the land is ruddy with gold, and Balthasar, King 
of Saba, where frankincense flows from the trees. (See Wise 
Men of the East.) When they beheld the star of Bethlehem 
they gathered together their retinue and set out on their journey. 
They reached Jerusalem and interviewed Herod, who was greatly 
impressed with their story. Then as they went out towards 
Bethlehem they came across an old woman who was cleaning 
her house. She asked them whither they were going. And when 
they told her she besought them to tarry until she had finished 
her task, and she would accompany them. They answered that 
they could not wait, and bade her follow after them. When she 
had finished she did strive to do so. But they were lost to sight ; 
and ever since that day she has been wandering about the earth 
seeking for the child Jesus. And on the eve of Epiphany, ac- 
cording to Eussian and Itahan folk-lore, she comes down the 



398 



CURIOSITIES OF 



chimneys of the houses, leaving gifts for the little ones, in imi- 
tation of the kings' fine gifts to the infant Christ, and hoping 
against hope that she may find Him whom she still seeks. In 




The Star of Bethlehem. 
(From Wright's " Caricature and Grotesque.") 

Italy she is known to this day as the Befana (a corruption of 
Epiphania), and in Eussia as the Baboushka. 

In the Greek Church, however, Christ's baptism is the most 
important event commemorated in the ceremonial of the day. 
Solemn baptism was given on the vigil of the Epiphany. At 
the present day among the Oriental sects it is usual for the 
clergy to bless the rivers at this time, the devout plunging into 
the icy waters, at imminent pulmonary risk. (See Jordan, 
Fete op the.) 

In memory of the Magi's offerings, it is even to this day the 
custom for the British sovereign to make gifts of gold, frankin- 
cense, and myrrh in the Chapel Eoyal, St. James. For many 
centuries this was done by the sovereign himself. George III., 
however, was the last king who appeared in person. Now^ the 
offerings are presented by two ofiicers of the Lord Chamberlain, 
attended by the Yeomen of the Guard, while the offertory sen- 
tences are being read ; the representatives of royalty bring up 
three purses and lay them on the alms-dish held by the celebrant, 
who presents them on the altar. 

The Twelfth Cake was another long-established feature of the 
day, not only in England, but in France. This cake contained 
hidden within it a bean or a silver penny. At the family gath- 
ering around it, the cake was divided by lot, and whoever got 
the piece containing the bean was accepted as king. 

A correspondent in the Universal Magazine for 1774 thus de- 
scribes the method at that date of drawing for King and Queen 
of Twelfth Night. The ceremony of the cake and the bean had 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 399 

been outgrown in England. " I went to a friend's house in the 
country to partake of some of those innocent pleasures that 
constitute a merry Christmas. I did not return till I had been 
present at drawing King and Queen and eaten a slice of the 
Twelfth Cake, made by the fair hands of my good friend's con- 
sort. After tea, yesterday, a noble cake was produced, and two 
bowls, containing the fortunate chances for the diiferent sexes. 
Our host filled up the tickets ; the whole company, except the 
King and Queen, were to be ministers of state, maids of honor, 
or ladies of the bedchamber. Our kind host and hostess, 
whether by design or accident, became King and Queen. Ac- 
cording to Twelfth Day law, each party is to support their 
character till midnight." 

Hone in his '• Every Day Book," vol. i. p. 51, describes the 
drawing as it was conducted in 1823 : " First, buy your cake. 
Then, before your visitors arrive, buy your characters, each of 
which should have a pleasant verse beneath. Next, look at your 
invitation list and count the number of ladies you expect; and 
afterwards the number of gentlemen. Then take as many female 
characters as you have invited ladies ; fold them up, exactly of 
the same size, and number each on the back, taking care to 
make the king No. 1 and the queen No. 2. Then prepare and 
number the gentlemen's characters. Cause tea and coffee to be 
handed to your visitors as they drop in. When all are assembled, 
and tea over, put as many ladies' characters in a reticule as there 
are ladies present ; next, put the gentlemen's characters in a hat. 
Then call a gentleman to carrj^ the reticule to the ladies, as they 
sit, from which each lady is to draw one ticket, and to preserve 
it unopened. Select a lady to bear the hat to the gentlemen for 
the same purpose. There will be one ticket left in the reticule 
and another in the hat, which the lady and gentleman who car- 
ried each is to interchange, as having fallen to each. Next 
arrange your visitors according to their numbers, — the king No. 
1, the queen No. 2, and so on. The king is then to recite the 
verse on his ticket, then the queen the verse on hers, and so the 
characters are to proceed in numerical order. This done, let 
the cake and refreshments go round, and hey! for merriment!" 

On Twelfth Day, 1563, Mary Queen of Scots celebrated the 
pastime of the King of the Bean at Holyrood, but with a queen 
instead of a king. The lot fell to the real queen's attendant, 
Mary Fleming, and the mistress arrayed the servant in her own 
robes and jewels. The English resident, Eandolph, who was in 
love with Mary Beton, another of the queen's maids of honor, 
wrote in excited terms about this festival to the Earl of Leicester. 
" Happy was it," says he, " unto this realm that her reign endured 
no longer. Two such sights in one state in so good accord I 



400 CURIOSITIES OF 

believe was never seen, as to behold two worthy queens possess 
without QYiYj one kingdom, both upon a day. I leave the rest 
to your lordship to be judged of. My pen staggereth, my hand 
faileth further to write." 

The Twelfth Mght festivities in old England were of a riotous 
sort. The nobility amused themselves by blowing up pasteboard 
castles and letting claret flow like blood out of a stag made of 
paste. Pasteboard castles were bombarded from a pasteboard 
ship, with cannon, in the midst of which the company pelted 
one another with egg-shells filled with rose-water; and large 
pies were made, filled with live frogs, which hopped out upon 
some curious person lifting up the lid. At court gaming was 
a costly feature. Evelyn records that on Twelfth Night, 1662, 
according to custom, his majesty (Charles II.) opened the revels 
of that night by throwing the dice himself in the Privy Cham- 
ber, where was a table set on purpose, and lost his hundred 
pounds. (The year before he had won fifteen hundred pounds.) 
The ladies also played very deep. Evelyn came away when the 
Duke of Ormond had won about one thousand pounds, and left 
them still at passage, cards, etc., at other tables. 

Among the lower orders also the day was given up to revelry ; 
and among them this has had a greater tenacity of life. In Lon- 
don, where the pastry-cook shops and confectioners' stalls with 
their Twelfth cakes were the great attraction, the boys of the 
street used to dehght in nailing the coat-tails of spectators to 
the window-frames, or in pinning them together. Sometimes 
eight or ten persons found themselves thus connected. The dex- 
terity of the nail-driving was so quick and sure that a single 
blow seldom failed of doing the business effectually. With- 
drawal of the nail without a proper instrument was out of the 
question, and consequently the person nailed was forced either 
to leave part of his coat as a cognizance of his attachment, or 
quit the spot with a hole in it. At every nailing and pinning 
shouts of laughter arose from the perpetrators ; yet it often hap- 
pened to one who turned and smiled at the duress of another 
that he also found himself nailed. Efforts at extrication in- 
creased mirth ; nor was the presence of a constable, who was 
usually employed to attend and preserve free " ingress, egress, 
and regress," sufiiciently awful to deter the offender. {Every Day 
Book, vol. i. p. 50.) 

Up to a comparatively recent date itinerant minstrels with 
bowls of lambs' wool would appear in the rural parts of Eng- 
land on the eve of the Epiphany. (See Wassail.) In Stafford- 
shire the star that led the Magi was represented by a lighted 
hill-fire. Seemingly in connection with this, though it is not 
easy to trace the train of ideas, are the customs that still prevail 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 401 

on the borders of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. At Paunt- 
ley, near Newent, the men of a farm would assemble in a field 
sown with wheat, and, after making twelve fires of straw in a 
row, would, standing round one much larger ihan the rest, drink 
a glass of cider to the master's health. Then, returning to the 
farm-house, they were regaled on cakes soaked in cider. 

The same ceremony went on on the other side of the boundary 
line of the counties, with a little more drinking, hallooing, and 
chorusing round the fires. At the supper afterwards there was a 
plum-cake with a hole in the middle which the bailiff (or head 
of the oxen) took to the wain-house. There the master pledged 
the best ox in a curious toast, the company following his example 
with all the other oxen, addressing each by name. The cake 
was placed on the ox's horn. If the ox, when tickled, tossed it off 
backward, the cake fell to the mistress ; if forward, to the bailiff. 

A kindred recognition of the twelve lights of the world, the 
apostles, and the Saviour in their midst, was customary in West- 
meath in the seventeenth century ; and so much of the custom 
as concerns the ox and the health-drinking formula seems also 
to have been in use at Tretire, near the Wye-side, the ox's toss 
arbitrating between the boys and the men as to the ownership 
of the cake. 

A curious custom obtained at the Isle of Man in olden days, 
when the Christmas festivities were kept up throughout the whole 
twelve days and every parish hired a fiddler at the public charge. 
On Twelfth Day the fiddler would lay his head in the lap of one 
of the girls, and then a third person would ask whom such and 
such a maid would marry, and the fiddler had to predict, and 
whatever he said was regarded as oracular, even though he 
coupled a pair who detested each other. This was called cutting 
off the fiddler's head, as from that night he was dead until the 
following Christmas. 

In France, where it probably originated, the Twelfth Night 
cake still survives. It is known there as La Galette du Roi 
("the king's cake"). This cake is generally made of pastry, 
and baked in a round sheet like a pie. The size of the cake de- 
pends upon the number of persons in the company. In former 
times a broad bean was baked in the cake, but now a small china 
doll is substituted for the bean. The cake is the last course in 
the dinner. One of the youngest people at the table is asked to 
say to whom each piece shall be given. This creates a little 
excitement, and all watch breathlessly to see who gets the 
doll. The person who gets it is king or queen, and immediately 
chooses a king or queen for a partner. As soon as the king and 
queen are announced they are under the constant observation of 
the other members of the party, and whatever they do is imme- 

26 



402 



CURIOSITIES OF 



diately commented upon. In a short time there is a perfect 
uproar: '^ The king drinks," "The queen speaks," "The queen 
laughs," etc. This is kept up for a long time ; then there are 
games, music, and dancing. 

In many parts of France, Belgium, and Holland processions 
of children tramp through the ^Streets bearing a large paper star 
illuminated from within by a candle. 

As already noted, the Baboushka in Eussia and the Befana 
in Italy are the respective representatives of our Santa Glaus, 

performing their functions 
on the eve of the Epiphany 
in lieu of Christmas Eve. 
Italian children carefully 
hang their clothes with 
emp'ty pockets around the 
hearth, and the Befana fills 
them with confectionery and 
other presents if they have 
been good, and with charcoal 
ashes or birch rods if they 
have been bad. In Florence 
a procession of the Befana 
used to be held on the eve 
of Epiphany. She was per- 
sonified by a colossal puppet 
representing a sorceress in 
flowing garments, the figure 
being so contrived as to ap- 
pear taller or shorter at the 
pleasure of the bearer, whose 
person was concealed by the 
draperies. This monstrous 
effigy frightened the chil- 
dren by looking in the open 
windows of the houses. She 
was borne through the principal streets of Florence, preceded 
by a burning broom, as a reminder of the work of sweeping 
which she refused to abandon for the sake of the infant Christ, 
and followed by a torchlight procession beating drums and 
blowing long glass trumpets. Finallj^ she was throwm from a 
bridge into the Arno, amid the acclamations of the multitude. 
The glass trumpets are still a discordant element in the Epiphany 
celebration. It is also customary for the Florentine shops 
to blossom out at Epiphany with puppets representing the 
Magi, amid which the grinning blackamoor face of Balthasar 
is especially conspicuous. 




Twelfth Night Pbocession in Holland. 
(From Picart.) 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 403 

At Eome the special fun of Epiphany Eve is found in the 
Piazza Eomana, where the din grows fast and furious at night- 
fall. Story describes it as almost deafeniug. " The object of 
every one is to make as much noise as possible, and every kind 
of instrument for this purpose is sold at the toy-booths. There 
are drums beating, tambourines thumping and jingling, pipes 
squeaking, watchmen's rattles clacking, penny trumpets and tin 
horns shrilling, the sharpest whistles shrieking, and mingling 
with these are heard the din of voices, screams of laughter, and 
the confused burr and buzz of a great crowd. Companies of 
people are marching together in platoons, or piercing through 
the crowd in long files, and dancing and blowing like mad on 
their instruments. It is a perfect witches' Sabbath." 

In Milan the feast of the Wise Men is observed with great 
parade and flourish. Three kings, brilliantly dressed and mounted 
on beautiful horses which are gayly accoutred, attended by showy 
pages and escorted by a large guard and followed by throngs of 
people, march through the streets. In front of the procession is 
borne a gold star, carried on a tall mast. The march is continued 
until the manger is found, when the gifts are presented to the 
infant Christ. 

In Spain also Epiphany is the great holiday for the children. 
Here, however, it is not the Befana nor the Baboushka, but one 
of the three kings — no less a person, indeed, than Balthasar — 
who is the purveyor of gifts. He is always represented as a 
blackamoor, and as such he survives in Spanish legend. On the 
eve of the Epiphany the children leave their shoes and boots out 
in some convenient spot near the chimney, to find them laden 
with gifts in the morning. 

Another curious ceremony w^hich exists in Spain on the eve 
of the Epiphany is similar to one that in England and France 
was practised on the eve of St. Valentine's {q. v.). 

" In the burgher society of Castile," says John Hay, " each little 
social circle comes together in a house agreed upon. They take 
mottoes of gilded paper and write on each the name of some one 
of the company. The names of the ladies are thrown into one 
urn, and those of the cavaliers into another, and they are drawn 
out by pairs. These couples are thus condemned by fortune to 
intimacy during the year. The gentleman is always to be at the 
order of the dame, and to serve her faithfully in every knightly 
fashion. He has all the duties and none of the privileges of a 
lover, unless it be the joy of those who stand and wait." 

The same authority tells us that the eve of the Epiphany is 
celebrated in Madrid by a bit of practical joking known as " the 
Kings." A crowd of men of the lower orders, playing on dis- 
cordant horns and thumping drums, surround the first simple 



404 CURIOSITIES OF 

fellow who happens to pass and persuade him that he must join 
them in the search for the Magi, who are expected to enter the 
city by one of the gates that night. Over the yokel's head they 
throw a mule-collar to which dozens of bells are attached. He 
is then made to carry a ladder through the streets, and first at 
one gate and then at another is commanded to halt and climb up 
to see if the kings are anywhere in sight. Sometimes when he 
reaches the top he is allowed to fall, at the risk of a broken head 
or limb. But if he escapes injury the exquisite jest is kept up 
until suspicion supplants faith in the mind of the neophyte, and 
the farce is over. 

Charles V. instituted in Spain the custom for the reigning 
sovereign to offer three gold chalices on Epiphany. Each chalice 
is worth about three hundred ducats. A piece of gold is placed 
in one, incense in the second, and myrrh in the third. After 
the offering one of these chalices is sent to the sacristy of St. 
Lawrence in the Escorial, and the other two to such churches or 
monasteries as the king may designate. 

Epulum Jovis in Capitolio. An ancient Eoman festival in 
honor of Jupiter, celebrated on the 13th of November. This 
festival took the form of a luxurious banquet which was held 
in the Capitol under the direction of a special board of seven, 
known as Epulones, and was participated in by the entire Sen- 
ate. The statues of the three Capitoline deities, Jupiter, Juno, 
and Minerva, were taken down upon this occasion and allowed 
to participate in the feast. Their hair was arranged, a mirror 
being held tip before them, that they might satisfy themselves as 
to their looks, their bodies were anointed, and their cheeks were 
colored with vermilion, and then they were placed at the table, 
— Jupiter reclining on a couch, after the manner of men, the 
goddesses erect in chairs, which was thought the proper attitude 
for women. 

At this feast it happened once that the greatest Eoman gen- 
eral of his time, Scipio Africanus, and Tiberius Gracchus, a young 
man of great promise, sat side by side. They had for a long 
time been unfriendly, but Gracchus on this day had spoken in 
the Senate in defence of Scipio's brother, and the two enemies 
were reconciled. In token of the reconciliation, Scipio betrothed 
his younger daughter to Gracchus ; and when he returned home 
at night and informed his wife that he had promised her in 
marriage, she remonstrated, saying that, even if it were to Tibe- 
rius Gracchus, the mother of the girl ought to have been con- 
sulted. The maiden thus summarily disposed of was Cornelia, 
mother of the Gracchi, and her sons were the famous tribunes, 
Tiberius and Caius Gracchus. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 405 

Eric, St. (or St. Henry), patron saint of Sweden, whose fes- 
tival on the anniversary of his death, May 18, is still celebrated 
as a national holiday, was an historical character, King of Sweden 
and of Norway, the ninth of the name. He was a Christian, and 
built numerous churches. He attempted an unsuccessful cru- 
sade against the Finns, and then wisely turned his attention to 
domestic legislation. He compiled a code of laws from the an- 
cient constitutions of the nation, and " St. Eric's Law" was long 
spoken of in Sweden with that kind of reverence with which 
the laws of St. Edward the Confessor were regarded by the 
English people under the rule of the foreign Normans. He was 
slain in battle on Ascension Day, 1151. He was in church when 
news was brought him that Magnus of Denmark had landed on 
the coast and was marching against him. He said, calmly, " Let 
us at least finish the sacrifice ; the rest of the festival ,1 shall 
keep elsewhere." When the mass was ended, he went forth at 
the head of his guards, and fell after a brave defence. His tomb 
remains to this day at Upsal, undefiled. The title of saint was 
given him by a popular and national canonization, and was after- 
wards confirmed by the Church. He is also knovvn as "the 
Pious" and " the Legislator." 

Escalade. The great annual festival of Geneva, held on De- 
cember 11 and 12. It keeps alive the memory of the repulse of 
a sudden and secret assault on the city by its hereditary ene- 
mies the Savoyards. 

During the night of the 11th of December, 1602, large forces 
marched from their several strongholds in Savoy, crossed the 
river Arve, and began to scale the town walls. At the moment 
the alarm was given, the citizens sprang from their beds and 
rushed out in the scantiest of attire, and proceeded to repel the 
attack. Some of the enemy had actually got into the town, 
but, thanks to the narrow, tortuous streets and their absolute 
darkness, had lost their way, and were soon overcome. Those 
climbing the walls were driven back, the women, who had also 
hastened to take part in the defence, pouring hot soup and water 
down on their heads. By noon of the 12th the Savoyards were 
completely routed and driven back into the fastnesses of their 
own country. 

" Ever since then," writes Percy Gordon in the Wew York 
Evening Post for February 15, 1896, " Geneva has celebrated the 
11th and 12th of December with unfailing regularity; and to- 
day, nearly three hundred years later, the time of the JEscalade, 
as it is called, is observed with a hilarity which shows no signs 
of having spent itself. Men, women, and children, after dark of 
the 11th and 12th, dress up in the most ludicrous of costumes, 



406 CURIOSITIES OF 

putting on the absurd Carnival masks, and walk the principal 
streets, throwing confetti at each other and the passers-by, until 
midnight, when the older folk adjourn to the Kursaal to indulge 
until morning in the dance and frolic of a masquerade ball. Woe 
to all unsuspecting foreigners who venture on the streets without 
costume! It is a traditional privilege of the gallants to kiss any 
Avoman caught on the streets unmasked. Last year an Amer- 
ican gentleman escorted three pretty American ladies to see the 
sights, unconscious, of course, of this tradition. The little party 
was soon surrounded by a laughing crowd of maskers, w^ho 
caught hands and danced around them, enjoying their confusion, 
until one bolder than the rest caught and kissed the prettiest of 
the three, when they all swung off with a merry laugh to go and 
annoy other unwary sight-seers. During this season very little 
work of any kind is done, of course. It is, in fact, the Genevese 
Thanksgiving Day, when, as with us, turkeys are fattened and 
killed, and the individual members of the various families gather, 
when they can, round the common ancestral boards. In the 
confectioners' shops are chocolate bonbons in the shape of little 
iron pots with lids on which are stamped the date 1602 and that 
of the current year. These little dainties serve to keep alive the 
incident of the patriotic soup-pouring by the women of the be- 
sieged city. It is indeed a merry time for all." 

Ethelreda, St., also called St. Audrey. Her festival is 
celebrated on October 17, the anniversary of the translation of 
her relics in 695. St. Ethelreda was a princess of East Anglia. 
Her kinsmen forced her to marry Tombert, King of the Gervii, 
and after his death Egfrid, King of Northumbria. (Eut she re- 
tained her virginity with both. After twelve years, with the 
consent of Egfrid she withdrew to the convent of Coldingham. 
Later Egfrid wished her back and tried to drag her from her 
retreat, but Ethelreda fled to a rock, since called St. Ebb's Head. 
Her husband pursued her, and legend says that the tide sud- 
denly rose and rendered the rock inaccessible. Egfrid gave up 
the chase and married another wife. Ethelreda crossed the 
Humber, and had a dream in which she thought that, having 
stuck her staff in the ground, it put forth branches and blos- 
somed into a large tree. Shortly afterwards she founded the 
cathedral and monastery of Ely, on the island of that name, 
and was the first abbess. She died June 23, 679. She made a 
dying request that she should be buried with the other sisters 
without any mark of distinction, but in 695 Sexburga, her sis- 
ter, who had succeeded as abbess, ordered her relics to be en- 
closed in a stone monument. In 1106 Eobert of Ely had the 
relics removed to the cathedral church of Ely. Her shrine 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 407 

perished during the Eeformation. It is related that four hun- 
dred years after her death a wicked man repented and vowed 
to serve God in the monastery of Ely. On his way thither he 
was taken and imprisoned for his crimes, but on his invoking 
St. Ethelreda she appeared in the night with St. Benedict and 
liberated him. 

Eucharist. (From the Pauline word eucharistia, " thanks- 
giving.") The name given to the consecrated bread used in the 
communion services. To Catholics it is also known as the host 
(Lat. hostia, " a victim"). With them it takes the form of a 
circular wafer made of unleavened wheat. They claim to follow 
the use of Christ himself, for leavened bread could not have 
been employed at the paschal supper. But their own authori- 
ties differ as to the ancient Christian usage. Perha])s Bona is 
right in his opinion that, whereas the Greeks have always used 
leavened bread, the Latins in the early ages used either leavened 
or unleavened bread according to convenience, and that the use 
of the latter was not obligatory among them till the tenth cen- 
tury. As Catholics believe that the host after consecration be- 
comes the actual body of Christ, they guard it with the most 
anxious reverence. " We are full of anxiety," says Tertullian, 
" lest anything of our chalice and bread should fall to the 
ground." Severe penalties were imposed, both in the East and 
in the West, upon the ministers of the altar, if through their 
negligence any accident happened to the Blessed Sacrament. 
Catholics are obliged to pay to the eucharist, present on the altar, 
reserved in the tabernacle, or carried in procession, that supreme 
worship which is due to God alone. "The eucharist," says the 
Council of Trent, " is not the less to be adored because Christ 
instituted it in order that it might be received ; for w^e believe 
that that same God is present in it of whom the eternal Father, 
bringing him into the world, said, ' Let all the angels of God 
adore him ;' that God whom the Magi adored falling down before 
him ; who, finally, was adored by the apostles in Galilee, as the 
Scripture bears witness." 

It was on account of this reverence due to the host that the 
devil-worshippers of France and other antichristian and Jewish 
societies have always been reputed anxious to secure the conse- 
crated wafers in order to inflict indignities upon them. So re- 
cently as 1894, it is asserted, two ciboria, containing one hundred 
consecrated hosts, were carried off by an old woman from the 
cathedral of Notre-Dame under circumstances which indicated 
that the vessels were not the objects of the larceny. Similar 
depredations are said to have increased in an extraordinar}' 
manner during recent years, and have occurred in all parts of 



408 CURIOSITIES OF 

France. No less than thirteen churches belonging to the dio- 
cese of Orleans were despoiled in the space of twelve months. 

Alleged miracles of the host bleeding when profanely lacer- 
ated by malevolent Jews, to whom in the Middle Ages was 
ascribed a fatal fascination for meddling with the Christian 
eucharist, have been chronicled at Paris in 1290 ; at Deckendorf 
in Bavaria, 1337 ; at Brussels, 1369 ; at Posen, 1399 ; at Nivelles, 
Brabant, 1405 ; and at Brandenburg, 1510, In most cases, with 
incredible obstinacy, the son of Israel denied his guilt, and was 
delivered over to the authorities to be burned. His possessions 
were confiscated ; his wife and children were either converted or 
killed. 

In the Paris case the accused, a Jew named Johnathas, was 
alleged to have craftily obtained the host from a poor woman 
wdiose goods he held in pawn. He first stabbed it with a knife, 
when it bled profusely, and then he successively placed it in the 
fire, whence it leaped out, and in a pot of boiling water, where 
it assumed in miniature the appearance of the crucified Saviour. 
Ultimately it was rescued by a pious woman and adored by multi- 
tudes. Many Jews were converted by it. Johnathas was burned 
alive. Clementina, second wife of Louis le Hutin, by her will 
(1328) left a bequest of ten Parisian pounds to the convent in 
Paris where God was boiled (" oii Dieu fut bouliz"). (See Notes 
and Queries, Eighth Series, vol. ix. p. 269.) 

In the " Secret Archives of the Vatican," 133, Epist. 294, the 
same authority found " a long, interesting, and possibly yet un- 
published letter" from Benedict XII., dated Avignon, August 
29, 1338, to Albert, Duke of Austria, written in response to the 
duke's inquiry how he should proceed concerning a case where 
a bleeding host had been discovered at the doors of a Hebrew's 
house. The Pope wisely and humanely refers to instances of 
similar happenings where the evidence was of a doubtful nature, 
and suggests that certain evil-minded laics may have done the 
thing. 

There is still preserved at Dijon a consecrated host sent to 
Philip III., Duke of Burgundy, by Eugenius IV. This w^as 
stained with blood, it was alleged, by reason of having been 
repeatedly struck by the knife of an unbeliever. Many miracles 
have been ascribed to it, its own incorruptibility heading the 
list. 

In Orvieto, Italy, is preserved a corporal cloth which is said 
to have been splashed with blood while a doubting priest was 
ofiiciating at mass. (See Corpus Christi.) 

Physicians have suggested that the bacillus prodigiosus is 
responsible for these stories of bleeding hosts. It forms red or 
pink patches not only upon breads but also upon cooked meat 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 409 

and fish. In 1843 it became almost an epidemic in Paris, where 
it grew more especially on the bread made in military barracks. 
(See Woodhead's Bacteria and their Products, 1891.) 

Euphemia, St. (patroness of Chalcedon, and one of the 
chief martyrs of the Greek Church). Her festival, celebrated 
on September 16, is a holiday over almost all the East. She was 
martyred near Byzantium about 307. After being cruelly tor- 
tured, she was cast first into a den of lions, who licked her fieet 
and refused to do her any violence, and then into the fire, which 
would not burn her : so she was finally despatched with a sword. 
Within a century after her death many churches were dedicated 
to her, both East and West. The most famous was in Chalcedon, 
which contained her relics. Here in 451 was held the fourth 
general Council, that condemned Eutyches. The fathers who 
took part attributed to the intercession of the saint much of the 
credit for the happy issue of that afi'air. Her shrine became so 
popular that for the convenience of pilgrims the relics were 
transferred to St. Sophia in Constantinople. In 813 Leo the 
Iconoclast ordered them to be thrown into the sea, but the sea 
gave them back again, and the faithful concealed them until after 
Leo's death. They are now preserved at Syllebria, on_ the Pro- 
pontine shore. A small portion is also possessed by the church 
of the Sorbonne at Paris. 

Another St. Euphemia was abbess of the monastery of St. 
Yictor in Marseilles. During an irruption of the Saracens she 
and her virgins all suffered martyrdom, after having first cut off 
their lips and noses to render themselves physically distasteful 
to the heathen invaders. 

Evacuation Day. A holiday celebrated in New York city 
on E"ovember 25, in commemoration of the day in 1783 when 
the British soldiers, who had still held possession of the city, 
finally evacuated it and left America to her new destiny. The 
war of the Eevolution practically closed with the surrender 
of Cornwallis at Yorktown in October, 1781. It is true that 
neither side relaxed its vigilance, but neither attempted serious 
aggressive operations. Six months after Yorktown came the 
first acknowledgment from England that she had seen the 
beginning of the end. 

Wilmington, North Carolina, was evacuated in May, 1782, 
Savannah in June, Charleston in December. These steps were 
significant and most acceptable to that war-worn section of the 
country, but they were not final. The abandonment of the 
South did not certainly foreshadow England's intentions. 

With the opening of 1783 matters took a definite shape. All 



410 CURIOSITIES OF 

doubts were soon removed. There was to be a final peace, based 
upon the absokite independence of the American States, with all 
their material claims to rights and territory recognized and ac- 
cepted by Great Britain. The great news reached America offi- 
cially in March, and on the 19th of April following Washington 
proclaimed to the army the cessation of hostilities. The war 
was over. What remained to be done of a military nature was, 
for the Americans, the adjustment of the soldiers' pay and dis- 
charge of the greater part of them from the service, and, for the 
British, the settlement of claims according to treaty, the dispo- 
sition of Tories, the gathering up of paraphernalia, and final 
departure. 

At the time of the peace announcement the enemy occupied 
but two points on the coast of the thirteen States, — New York 
and the mouth of the Penobscot. The latter post they had held 
since 1779 as a protection for English settlers and refugees, and 
to secure a valuable lumber region. New York had been in 
British hands since September 15, 1776. It had ever since been 
their head-quarters and base of operations. 

There were many and vexatious delays, but finally at eight 
o'clock on November 25, 1783, the American troops under Wash- 
ington marched into the city, and by noon the last guards of the 
English had evacuated it. The last boat-load of Britishers pre- 
sumably carried away the British flag that had so long waved 
from Fort George at the Battery. The Continentals hoisted in 
its place the flag of the thirteen States and saluted it with thir- 
teen rounds fired from John Bull's guns. 

Up to the middle of the nineteenth century Evacuation Day 
was one of the greatest of New York's holidays. But its close 
proximity to Thanksgiving led to its gradual fading away before 
the more national celebration. Nowadays it is marked only by 
a parade of the Old Guard of New York down to the Battery, 
where a flag-raising is held on the old site of Fort George. 
The person who raises the flag has always been a lineal descend- 
ant of the sailor-boy who raised it in 1783. 

Eve, Even, or Vigil. In their present acceptation these 
words apply to the whole day which precedes a feast. Origi- 
nally Christians were in the habit of keeping vigils, i.e., watch- 
ings, on the evenings prior to certain festivals, and by extraor- 
dinary devotions preparing for the better celebration of the 
feast on the following day. The words eve or even and vigil 
thus grew to be almost synonymous. By the ninth century or 
thereabouts the practice of fasting on vigils, at first a voluntary 
devotion, had grown to be obligatory. The eves of Christmas 
and Easter were considered the most important during the year, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 411 

and the midnight mass on the first date is a relic of the old cus- 
tom. But none of the festivals which occur between Christmas 
and Candlemas nor between Easter and Whitsuntide is preceded 
by a vigil, the period being regarded as one of joy and not proper 
for tasting. Hence the familiar New Year's Eve is, ecclesiasti- 
cally, a misnomer. The feast of Michaelmas and All Angels as 
commemorating the bliss of heaven is also without a vigil, as is 
that of St. Luke because preceded by the feast of St. Ethelreda. 

Eve, Tomb of. The Arabs assert that Eve's tomb is at 
Jiddah, the seaport of Mecca. The temple, with a palm growing 
out of the solid stone roof (a curiosity which is of itself the 
wonder of the Orient), is supposed to mark the last resting- 
place of the first woman. According to Arabian tradition, Eve 
measured over two hundred feet in height. Her tomb, in a 
graveyard surrounded with high white walls, which has not been 
opened for a single interment for over a thousand years, is the 
shrine of thousands of devoted Ishmaelites, who make a pil- 
grimage to the spot once every seven years. It is hemmed in 
on all sides by the tombs of departed sheiks and other worthies 
who have lived out their days in that region of scorching sun 
and burning sands. Once each year, on June 3, which is, accord- 
ing to Arabian legends, the anniversary of the death ot Abel, 
the doors of the temple forming a canopy over this supposed 
tomb of our first mother remain open all night, in spite of the 
keeper's efforts to close them. Terrible cries of anguish are said 
to be emitted thence, as though the memory of the first known 
tragedy still haunted the remains which blind superstition 
believes to be deposited there. 

Excommunication. The formal exclusion of a person from 
religious communion and privileges. Excommunication, often 
with very severe consequences, was practised in various ways by 
the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Jews. It is still in use among 
Mohammedans. In the early Christian Church it consisted sim- 
ply in the exclusion of an offending member from fellowship by 
some formal action. This is still the practice among most Prot- 
estant denominations. As the power of the Church increased, 
excommunication became more complicated in method and severe 
in effect. In the Eoman and related Churches excommunication 
may be either partial or total, temporary or perpetual. By the 
partial, or excommunicatio mi7ior, the culprit is merely excluded 
from the sacraments ; by the total, or excommunicatio major, he 
is excluded from the mass, from all intercourse with Christians, 
from ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and from burial in consecrated 
ground. Bell, book, and candle are the three instruments em- 



412 



CURIOSITIES OF 



ployed in the formal ceremony of excommunication. The ring- 
ing of the bell apprises the faithful within the church of what is 




Ceremony of Excommunication. 
(From Picart.) 



about to happen, the sentence is read out of the book, and the 
lighted candle is then extinguished to denote the spiritual dark- 
ness in which the excommunicated person must for the future 
abide. 

Expectation of the Confinement of Our Lady. A 

Catholic festival celebrated on December 18 in many churches of 
France and Spain, and generally among the Cistercian, Domini- 
can, Franciscan, and Carmelite monastic orders. The festival 
was ordered b}^ the tenth Council of Toledo, in 654, in the time 
of King Rechaswinth, because the feast of the Annunciation 
generally falls in Lent, when the Church is engaged on other 
solemnities, and cannot celebrate that mystery with the applica- 
tion it deserves. In France the day often goes by the name of 
"Notre-Dame de I'O," because on it begins the antiphon " O 
Sapientia," the first of the eight Greater Antiphons, all begin- 
ning with O. Similarly in England, though the Reformed Church 
does not recognize the festival, the daj' is known as " O Sapientia." 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 413 



Fair. An assemblafije of men and women, gathered together 
at periodical intervals, primarily for the purpose of traffic and 
barter, but also for affording an outlet for the exuberant animal 
forces which are characteristic of the populace of most nations. 
It would seem, indeed, that the holiday idea preceded the work- 
day. The origin of fairs was in ancient Egypt. When the an- 
nual overflow of the Nile converted the lower level of its valley 
into a watery waste, the entire population would crowd in 
barges to the various festivals held in the principal towns or in 
the neighborhood of the great temples. Bustle and activity pre- 
vailed here, products and manufactures found a ready market, 
priests played lucratively upon popular superstition, and mummers 
and fakirs found ready gratuities. This periodical flocking to 
the great festivals, with the attendant mingling of traffic and 
amusement, still survives among the Hindoos and other Asiatic 
races. The Greeks and Eomans had their fairs also, when labor 
and law-pleadings were for the nonce suspended. 

In the Middle Ages fairs sprang up in Europe just as they had 
done in Egypt. They were the result of the gatherings of pil- 
grims to sacred places at fixed seasons. Those sacred places 
were often in the country, remote from houses of public enter- 
tainment, and thus tents were pitched and stalls set up for the 
lodging and refection of worshippers. Tradesmen naturally 
flocked hither to dispose of their wares. The priors were entitled 
to certain tolls, and to render the festivals more attractive they 
speedily introduced various amusements. Indeed, it was at such 
places that the best entertainment was to be found which was 
within men's reach in the Middle Ages. The fairs were fre- 
quented by lords and j)rince8. Those of Beaucaire, Frankfort, 
and Leipsic amused the nobles of Normandy and Germany ; the 
great fairs of England — Bartholomew Fair, Greenwich Fair, 
Peterborough Fair, and Edmonton Fair — attracted royalty itself. 

Thus the fair was originally bound to the life of the nation by 
the three ties of rehgion, trade, and pleasure. But the time 
came when the tie of religion was loosened : then it was a 
place for trade and pleasure. A few more generations having 
lived and waned, trade was no longer bound to it. The nation 
still grew, and at last broke from it even as a pleasure-place. 

The history of Bartholomew Fair is in essentials if not in 
details the history of all English fairs. 

The old priory and church of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield 
were founded in March, 1123, by one Eaycr, who had been jester 
to Henry I. He had not forgotten his juggling tricks when he 



414 CURIOSITIES OF 

became an abbot. The numerous miracles performed at the 
shrine were even by many of his contemporaries regarded as 
the result of Eayer's ingenuity. From the time of the estab- 
lishment of his priory a fair had begun to be held in the grave- 
yard and open space before it on St. Bartholomew's Day. Thus, 
in the beginning we have a fair full of worshippers, among whom 
were the sick and maimed, praying for health about its altar ; a 
graveyard full of traders loudly magnifying their wares ; and a 
place of jesting and edification where women and men caroused 
together, where the minstrel and the story-teller and the tumbler 
gathered knots about them, where the 3'oung men bowled at 
nine-pins, while the clerks and friars peeped at the young maids, 
where mounted knights and ladies curveted and ambled, where 
oxen lowed, horses neighed, and sheep bleated among their pur- 
chasers, where great shouts of laughter answered to the ho ! ho ! 
of the devil on the stage, while a band of pipers and guitar- 
beaters added music to the din. 

After the Eeformation the priory went down, but the fair con- 
tinued. Lord Eich, the nian who helped to rack Anne Askew, 
bought the priory and all its rights for £1064. The Eeformed 
Church took no notice of the fair, but it was supported by munici- 
pal patronage. The lord mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen, going 
to Smithfield in a procession, opened the fair with a solemn 
proclamation ; and after they had drunk a cup of ale, the sports 
and business commenced. 

The license of the Eestoration extended the fair from a three 
days' market to a fortnight's riot of amusement. 

In 1697 the lord mayor on St. Bartholomew's Day published 
an ordinance recorded in the Fostman "for the suppression of 
vicious practices in Bartholomew Fair, as obscene, lascivious, and 
scandalous plays, comedies, and farces, unlawful games and inter- 
ludes, drunkenness, etc., strictly charging all constables and other 
officers to use their utmost diligence in persecuting the same." 
In 1698 a Frenchman, Monsieur Sorbiere, visiting London, says, 
'f I was at Bartholomew Fair. It consists mostly of toy-shops, 
atso fiacres and pictures, ribbon-shops, no books ; many shops of 
confectioners, where any woman may be commodiously treated. 
Knavery is here in perfection, dexterous cutpurses and pick- 
pockets. I went to see the dancing on the ropes, which was 
admirable. Coming out, I met a man that would have took off 
my hat, but I secured it, and was going to draw my sword, crying 
out, ' Begar ! damn'd rogue ! morbleu !' etc., when on a sudden 1 
had a hundred people about me, crying, ' Here, monsieur, see 
JejphthaKs Rash Vow f 'Here, monsieur, see The Tall Butch- 
woman ;' ' See The Tiger '^ says another ; ' See The Horse and No 
Horse^ whose tail stands where his head should do;' 'See' the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 415 

German Artist^ monsieur;' 'See The Siege of Wamur, monsieur;' 
so that betwixt rudeness and civility I was forced to get into a 
fiacre, and, with an air of haste and a full trot, got home to my 
lodgings." 

In 1701 Bartholomew Fair was presented as a nuisance by the 
Grand Jury of London, and in 1750 it was reduced to its original 
three days. In consequence of the alteration of the calendar in 
1752, the fair in the following year was, for the first time, pro- 
claimed on September 3. 

A few years later things had come to this, that " by every 
thief living in London Bartholomew Fair was regarded as an 
annual performance for his benefit." Decency could hardly 
venture there ; and the deterioration of the shows is proved by 
the factJhat nearly all of them charged but a penny for admis- 
sion. (^At the beginning of the nineteenth century a favorite 
amusement of the assembled blackguards was to surround some 
respectable woman and tear her clothes off her back. 

In 1849 Bartholomew Fair contained only a dozen gingerbread- 
stalls. In 1850 the lord mayor, quietly walking to Smithfield, 
proclaimed the fair for the last time. In 1855 the form of 
proclamation, done for the last five times by deputy, ceased to be 
observed. The single relic of the great fair is an annual fee of 
three shillings and sixpence paid by the city to the rector of St. 
Bartholomew the Great. And thus passed away an observance 
which had its day, and which served its end, and which died out 
naturally when its day was over. 

In the earlier days all the great fairs were almost identical in 
their main features. Yet in course of time as the fairs lost their 
usefulness they developed picturesque idiosyncrasies. Edmonton 
Statute Fair, for example, became the most profoundly useless 
of them all. It was a combination of three fairs in one, all 
" unmixed," says Mr. E. H. Home, " with the sale of pigs, cattle, 
or ' baser matter ;' nothing of the least utility or permanent 
value was to be found there, everything being of the most 
ostentatious gorgeous finery, gilt and painted trumpery, and 
grotesque absurdity." Of course he is speaking of the fair as it 
appeared in his own boyhood. Of Greenwich Fair the same 
authority reports that it had many striking peculiarities, besides 
the usual number of large shows. First there was the noble old 
hospital and the frequent presence of old pensioners in their 
quaint old-fashioned sombre uniform of navy blue, with the 
three-cornered cocked hat, knee-breeches, and square-toed shoes 
with huge plated buckles. The other great feature was the 
" Crown and Anchor" booth, which, varying its size at different 
fairs, invariably put forth its utmost magnitude and its fullest 
splendors for Greenwich Fair. 



416 



CURIOSITIES OF 



" The Crown and Anchor booth was so long that a full band 
played for dances at the top, by the bar, another at the bottom 
of the booth, and a third in the centre ; and though they often 
played different dances, different airs to suit, and in different 
keys, you could only hear the music of your own dance, the pre- 
dominant accompaniment to each being the measured muffled 
thunders of the boots of the fair-going Londoners. At these 
high moments it may be supposed that the fun was too fast and 
furious for the gentler beings of creation, — of course with some 
rather conspicuous exceptions." The last great specialty was 
the roll down Greenwich Hill. " Many persons at home as well 
as abroad have never seen that celebrated hill, never rolled down 
it, and some, perhaps, may not even have heard of it. But a 
word or two will suffice to make them in some degree aware of 
the pleasure they have lost. A number of fair-going young 
people of both sexes — but most commonly lovers or brothers and 
sisters — seated themselves on the top of thi-s steep and beauti- 
fully green hill, and, beginning to roll down slowly, they pres- 



£/te» PciiWuifr 







jUm UTtMitf *t C»ftt 



Frost Fair of 1683. 
(From a contemporary print.) 



ently found that the rolling became quicker and quicker, — that 
they had no power to govern their rapidity, still less to stop ; 
and they invariably rolled to the bottom. It didn't agree with 
everybody." 

Peterborough Market Fair was celebrated for only one pecu- 
liarity, its immense quantities of woodwork for farming opera- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 417 

tions. There you might see piles on piles of axe-, hoe-, fork-, 
rake-, and sj)ade-handles ; also handles for smiths' and carpenters' 
hammers ; also tires and spokes for cart-wheels, window-frames, 
wheelbarrows, and dense arrays of field-gates, hurdles, and fences. 

The London frost fairs which resulted from the occasional 
freezing over of the river Thames had a character and individu- 
ality of their own. One of the most remarkable of these was 
that held in the winter of 1683-4, when the frost lasted without 
a moment's cessation from early in December to February 4. 
The Thames was congealed into a solid mass of ice, eleven inches 
in thickness. A new city sprang into existence on the river. A 
contemporaneous print has the following legend : 

"A WONDEEFUL FAIE, or a FAIE OF WONDEES; 
being a new and true Illustration and Description of the several 
things acted and done on the river Thames in the time of the 
terrible frost, which began at the beginning of December, 
1683-4, and continued till the 4th of February, and held on with 
such violence that men and beasts, coaches and sledges, went 
common thereon. There was also a street of boothes, built from 
the Temple to South-wark, where was sold all sorts of goods ; 
there likewise were bulls baited, a fox hunted, and an ox roasted 
whole, and many other strange things, as the Mapp and Descrip- 
tion doth plainly shew." 

This fair was known as the Blanket Fair, from the fact that 
the booths were formed of blankets, a fact celebrated in a dog- 
gerel ballad of the day which anticipates a famous conceit of 
Goldsmith's : 

Like Babel, this fair's not built with brick or stone, 
Though here, I believe, is a great confusion. 
Now blankets are forced a double duty to pay, 
As beds all the night, and for houses all day. 

The booths supplied every conceivable kind of commodity, 
Buch as goldsmiths' work, books, toys, cutlery, ornaments, and 
refreshments, for which they charged exorbitant prices, a fact 
the rhyming historians of the scene have not failed duly to 
chronicle : 

And such a fair I never yet came near, 

"Where shop-rents were so cheap and goods so dear. 

Llandaff has the greatest fair in Wales. Tradition dates its 
origin back to the first century of the Christian era. At the 
most prosperous period of its career it was prolonged for many 
days. Monks and laymen flocked to it from many miles around. 
Llandaff churchyard was one scene of buying and selling, in 
tents and booths. Nowadays booths are not set up in the 

27 



418 CURIOSITIES OF 

churchyard, but they occupy the streets of the decayed cathe- 
dral city, even to the very walls of the bishop's palace. This 
fair legally commences on Whit Monday, which is the greatest 
of Welsh feasts, and lasts until Wednesday. But in point of fact 
the revels commence with Whitsunday. 

No cries of hawkers rend the air, but a thriving trade is done 
in oranges, nuts, and gingerbread, all the same. Keepers of 
shows surreptitiously take pence and pass people quietly into 
their tents to see the African serpents, the wax-works, and the 
rest. As the hours pass, matters grow worse. After dusk, the 
beer begins to flow, and with the falling darkness the license 
becomes greater. At midnight there are uncountable crowds 
on the scene. The following morning the fair ostensibly begins ; 
before noon it is roaring with bustle ; Punch and Judy squeak ; 
hawkers howl ; exhibitors of curiosities bawl at the highest 
pitch of their voices. There are curiosities enough here, — fat 
women, living skeletons, wax-works, pygmies, giants, performing 
dogs and monkeys, an endless array of idle and profitless diver- 
sions. Merry go-rounds whirl their laughing, shrieking freight 
through the air, — " warranted to make you sea-sick for a penny." 
Shooting-galleries, and even perambulating photograph-galleries, 
are there. 

The pre-eminently great fair in Ireland was that held at Don- 
nybrook, a village a few miles outside of Dublin. The familiar 
song which makes the " shillelah"' the all-in-all of the fair belongs 
to a traditionary period. " A few fights and broken heads," says 
Mr, Home, " inseparable from all English as well as Irish fairs, 
of course always took place, but the crowd was too dense to 
allow of much damage being done. There was not only no 
room for ' science,' but no room to strike a blow of a real kind 
from the shoulder and ' using the toes.' We saw no blood 
flow." 

The fair, as to its great shows and booths, was held in a large 
hollow or basin of green ground, on descending into which you 
found the immediate skirtings occupied by a set of very little, 
very low-roofed, tomb-like booths, where a busy trade was car- 
ried on in fried potatoes, fried sausages, and oysters, cold and 
scalloped. But what amused Mr. Home most were the scenes 
in the village itself. 

" The houses were all very small, the largest generally rising 
no higher than one floor above the ground-floor rooms, and every 
house being entirely appropriated to the use of the fair-coming 
people. The rooms below were devoted to whiskey-drinking, 
songs, jokes, politeness, and courtship, with a jig in the middle ; 
and very much the same, but with more elaborate and constant 
dancing, in the rooms above. Every house presented the same 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 419 

scene, — yes, every house along the whole village : and when you 
came to the narrower streets the effect was peculiar and ludi- 
crous in the extreme. For, observe, the rooms being all crowded 
to the last man and woman and child they could hold, and the 
* dancing,' especially above-stairs, being an absolute condition, 
there was no room left for the fiddler. We say there was no 
room left for him, and yet he must be among them. There was 
room for him as a man, be it understood, but not as a fiddler. His 
elbow required space enough for another man, and this could not 
be afforded. The problem, therefore, was solved by opening the 
window up-stairs : the fiddler sat out upon the window-sill, and 
his elbow worked outside. The effect of this ' elbow' playing 
outside the window of every upper floor, sometimes out of both 
upper and ground floor, of every house in a whole street, and 
on both sides of the way, and playing a similar kind of jig, sur- 
passed anything of that kind of humor in action it had ever 
been my fortune to witness. If that is not merry fun, show 
me what is ! The elbows all played so true a time that, if you 
had not heard a note, you would have known that it was an 
Irish jig by the motion of all these jaunty and ' knowing' elbows ! 
'' A last word on Donnybrook shall be devoted to one more 
custom, characteristic of the kindliness as well as the humor of 
the nation, which was manifested in a way never seen elsewhere. 
Once every hour or so a large, close-covered police van was 
driven through the fair to pick up all the very drunken men 
who were rolling about, unable to govern their emotions. They 
were at once lifted into the van, and here many of them again 
found their legs, and you heard the muffled singing and dull 
thunder of their dancing inside as the philanthropic van passed 
along." 

Fairlop Oak Festival. The Fairlop oak stood in Epping 
Forest, Essex. Its branches spread three hundred feet, and its 
girth, at three feet from the ground, was thirty-six feet. Tradi- 
tion traced this oak back to the ninth century. It was acci- 
dentally set on fire in 1805. A part of it was used in the manu- 
facture of St. Pancras New Church in London. The rest of the 
tree stood for many years, all trunk and bare dry boughs. Not 
a leaf had ever been seen by the oldest inhabitant. It stood 
there a colossal skeleton, a monument of itself, by the sheer 
strength of its bulk, and was pulled down at last by teams of 
oxen and long ropes, lest some fair-day a huge limb or so might 
fall and crush several theatres, menageries, peep-shows, and holi- 
day people. Myriads of snuff-boxes, tobacco-boxes, and fancy 
boxes were made of the wood, — or said to have been made of 
the wood, — and are sold as such to this day every fair-day. 



420 CURIOSITIES OF 

For the fair still coDtinues in the Deighborhood, though the 
oak around which it once centred has disappeared. The fair 
owes its origin to one Daniel Day Good, familiarly known as 
Good Day, a London block- and pump-maker of the early 
eighteenth century, who purchased a small estate near Epping 
Forest. Thither he was in the habit of repairing shortly after 
midsummer to collect the rent. But he did not go alone. He 
invited his London acquaintances to take an outing with him. 
The immense tree hard by his own estate was a grand trysting- 
place, and here the little company would assemble in July. 
Visitors came in increasing numbers with the rolling years. 
Public curiosity was excited by the flocking people, as well as 
by the account of Nature's marvellous production. So long ago 
as the year 1725 the spot presented the appearance of a regular 
fair with the customary booths and wares and amusements. The 
founder of the festival himself provided a large quantity of 
bacon, with several sacks of beans, which he distributed from 
the trunk of the tree. Boats began running to the place on 
Fairlop Festival Day. During the years of the slow decay of 
the great oak, when the trunk below became hollow, the cavity 
was cleared, smoothed, papered, hung with pea-green drapery, 
and furnished with a circular table and a circular bench, where 
ten or a dozen happy fair-going people sat round to dinner, and 
sometimes to pipes and grog. 

Fairlop Day is still observed for a procession and an annual 
outing on the Fairlop boat. The return journey, when the boat 
is brilliantly illuminated, is so timed that the procession arrives 
in Mile End Eoad late in the evening, where the toiling masses 
join in with lighted torches. 

Fakirs. Self-torturing Buddhist fanatics, the greater por- 
tion of whom perambulate the country as solitary mendicants. 
Monks and saints of Christendom have otten subjected the body 
to grievous penance, secluding themselves from the happy com- 
munion of their fellows, fasting oft, and daily kneeling on the 
rocky floor of their cells before a crucifix, while they lacerated 
their backs with stripes. But all such triumphs over the in- 
stincts of our nature fade out of sight before the tremendous 
self-imposed tortures to be witnessed among the Indian popula- 
tion. Asceticism there counts its votaries by thousands. Some 
of these strange beings keep one or both arms extended above 
their heads till the muscles become so rigid and fixed as to be 
incapable of motion ; some keep their hands closed till the nails 
make their way through the flesh and completely perforate the 
hand ; others hold up their faces to the sky till the muscles of 
the neck contract so as to retain the head in that position. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 421 

These faDatics usually belong to the Saiva sect; they mat or 
twist their hair so as to make it rise above the head, and go 
about either in a state of nudity or with only a small wrapper 
stained with ochre. The extraordinary feats of these fanatics 
are fully described by the Eev. P. Percival in his " Land of the 
Yedas" from personal observation. " Some were literally in- 
terred," he says, "in an^ordinary posture; others were buried 
with the head downward, and only the legs from the knees 
above ground ; one sat on an iron frame in which were fixed 
iron spikes which pierced his flesh; some had a pan of burning 
coals on the head, and bore it along in the crowd ; while others 
lay prostrate on their backs, with a vessel full of burning embers 
on the breast, and one was performing the penance of the Five 
Fires, being seated in the midst of four, with the fifth, the burn- 
ing sun, pouring its rays on his naked head. One man had an 
iron collar round his neck on whose margin were planted iron 
spikes." Sometimes a devotee, stretching himself on the ground 
on his back, places a handful of moist earth on his under lip, 
plants in it some grains of mustard-seed, and then, lying per- 
fectly motionless, without food or drink, exposes himself to the 
heat of day and dews of night till the seed germinates, which is 
generally about the fourth day. The Hindoo of a fanatical tem- 
perament takes to such practices from a native instinct ; he trains 
himself to them with as much satisfaction as our pugilists and 
athletes feel in practising their various forms of gymnastics, 
and the crowds at the festivals look at these exhibitions of the 
triumph of soul over flesh as hilariously and complacently as an 
Anglo-Saxon assembly witnesses the feats of the circus. 

Fast- Days. Strictly speaking, fasting means total absti- 
nence from food and drink for a given period. The fasts of 
Mohammedans and orthodox Jews are of this character. In the 
Catholic and Greek Churches, however, one full meal is permitted 
within the twenty-four hours, and Catholics are now allowed a 
very light collation morning and evening. Flesh meat is strictly 
forbidden. Days of abstinence (such as Friday throughout the 
year) are distinguished from fast-days by the fact that abstinence 
from flesh meat is the only requirement. 

Though the English Prayer Book notes " days of fasting or 
abstinence," there are no limitations prescribed as to eating or 
drinking, the matter being left to the individual conscience. In 
the reign of Elizabeth, however, eating of flesh on fish-days (i.e., 
Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays) was forbidden by statute. 
Public fast-days used to be appointed by the sovereign. 

On the 19th of October, 1803, during the invasion scare pro- 
duced by Napoleon's threat to cross over to England, the religious 



422 CURIOSITIES OF 

panacea of a general fast was tried and " was observed with the 
utmost decorum" in London and elsewhere. The Volunteers 
especially won the gratifying encomiums of the Times for their 
goodness in going to church. Thereafter annual fasts were of 
regular occurrence, though at irregular dates. The 25th of May 
was appointed in 1804, the 20th of February in 1805, the 26th 
of February in 1806, etc. From a contemporary account of the 
1804 fast it would appear that the people generally were accus- 
toming themselves to proper behavior on these occasions: "Yes- 
terday, being the day appointed for the observance of a solemn 
Fast, was duly observed in the Metropolis, at least as far as out- 
ward show and decorum can go. Every shop was shut ; for 
those who on similar occasions kept their windows open have 
probably learned that to offend against public example and 
decency is not the way to insure either favor or credit. Most 
of the Volunteer Corps attended at their several churches, where 
sermons suitable to the day were preached." But it is obvious 
that different people have different views of national fasting and 
chastening, for it is recorded of the 1805 fast, after the customary 
tribute to the church -going Volunteers, that " a very elegant and 
fashionable display of equestrians and charioteers graced the 
public ride about three o'clock. The Countesses of Cholmondeley 
and Harcourt were noticed for the first time this season, each of 
whom sported a very elegant landau. Mr. Buxton sported his 
four bays in his new phaeton, in a great style, and Mr. Chartres 
his fine set of blacks." 

In the ]N'ew England States days of "public humiliation, fast- 
ing, and prayer" were proclaimed by the respective governors 
usually about the middle of April. Massachusetts abolished the 
custom in 1895, and substituted a holiday known as Patriot's 
Day, on April 19. Maine and New Hampshire still have their 
periodical Fast-Day. But the spirit has gone out of it. In- 
stead of being observed as a day of fasting, it is a day of gen- 
eral feasting. In 1897 Governor Ramsdell of IN'ew Hampshire 
urged the law-makers of that State to ibllow the example of 
Massachusetts. 

" The observance of Fast-Day," he said in his message, " in 
accordance with the design of the worthy men by whose efforts 
a day was originally set apart for special fasting, humiliation, 
and prayer, by the Governor, with assent of the Council, having 
ceased, I recommend that Fast-Day be abolished as a legal holi- 
day, and the words ' Fast-Day' be stricken out of the statutes 
wherever they occur, and any other amendments made necessary 
to the practical abolition of Fast-Day." 

In Maine the custom is likewise generally disapproved. There 
is a story current that one April the governor, in the absence of 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 423 

his secretary, intrusted the drawing up of a Fast-Day proclama- 
tion to his messenger. The latter, being a bit of a wag, instead 
of penning a stately and pious document, wrote out the follow- 
ing; 

'LHaving consulted my Council and learned that none of them 
has an engagement to dine on that day, and feeling fully assured 
that I shall receive no invitation to dine out until the high school 
graduating exercises begin and field strawberries get down to 
eight cents a quart, I do hereby appoint Thursday, the 17th day 
of April, as a day of public humiliation, fasting, and prayer. 
While the scoffers in our sister State are holding horse-races, 
playing baseball, and gorging themselves with forbidden food, 
let us thank our stars that we know when we have enough, and 
feel grateful for the empty stomachs and clear heads we shall 
have the morning after. Though I am unable to say what the 
Council will do on that day, for myself I shall attend church if 
I can find a minister who will stay long enough to preach to me. 
Given in the Council chamber," etc. 

The messenger, having made a rough draught, copied it on a 
new sheet in an engrossing clerk's handwriting, and took it to 
the governor, who signed it without reading a line. From here 
the messenger carried the proclamation down to the secretary 
of state, who tried to affix his signature, but could not do so on 
account of a bad pen. While he waited for a clerk to bring him 
a box of new pens he cast his eyes down the sheet, discovered 
the unusual phraseology, and read the document from beginning 
to end. Then he gave the messenger a piece of his mind, telling 
him it was bad enough to make light of Fast-Day, but when he 
began to trifie with the feelings of the chief magistrate, who 
was also commander-in-chief of the army, no State could endure 
such an outrage. The messenger argued that it was nothing but 
an April joke, and the bigger the man it hit the better the joke 
was. This remark led the secretary to look at his calendar, and 
when he found it was April 1 he forgave the messenger, who 
retained his job through the administration. 

February. (From Lat. februare, to " expiate" or " purify," 
because the Eoman festival of purification was celebrated in this 
month.) The month was introduced by Nuraa into the Eoman 
calendar as the closing month of the year, but in b.c. 452 the 
decemvirs changed it from this position and placed it after Jan- 
uary as the second month. When Julius Caesar reformed the 
calendar (q. v.) he ordered that each alternate month from 
January on should have thirty-one days, and the intermediate 
months thirty, with the exception of February, which was given 
thirty days in leap-year and twenty-nine in the other years. But 



424 



CURIOSITIES OF 



Augustus, unwilling that the month named after him should be 
shorter than its predecessor, took a day from February and added 
it to August, and, in order that three months of thirty-one 




February. Pruning Trees. 

days should not come together, he reversed the lengths of the 
four succeeding months. 

The ancient Saxons called this month Sprout-kale, from the 
sprouting of the cabbage at this season. Later it was known as 
Solmonat, or Sun Month, the sun having now returned from the 
low latitudes to its higher course. 

Felicitas, St., patroness of male heirs. Her festival is cele- 
brated on November 23, that of her sons on July 10. According 
to the legend, St. Felicitas was a widow belonging to an illus- 
trious Eoman family. She had brought up her seven sons in 
the Christian faith, and was herself so eminent for her virtues 
that many were converted through her example. This was in 
the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; though 
other authorities state that it was under Antoninus Pius. When 
the great persecution of the Christians took place she was one 
of the first to be cited before the tribunal of the prefect Publius. 
But she steadily refused to deny Christ and sacrifice to false 
gods. Then the prefect called the sons before him and com- 
manded them to abjure Christ on pain of torments and of death, 
but their mother encouraged them to persevere in resistance. One 
after another they were put to death, on July 10, 173. Janua- 
rius, the eldest, was scourged with leaded thongs ; Felix and 
Philip were beaten with clubs; Sylvanus was thrown from a 
rock; Alexander, Yitalis, and Martial were beheaded. The name 
of Juvenal is in some legends substituted for one or other of 
the sons. During their sufferings the mother stood heroically 
by and ceased not to comfort and encourage them ; and when 
they were dead she thanked God that she had given birth to 
sons who had been deemed worthy of paradise. Four months 
later she was tortured in various ways, and then beheaded, or, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 425 

as some say, thrown into a caldron of boiling oil. In art she is 
represented hooded or veiled as a widow, bearing the martyr's 
palm, and accompanied by her seven sons. St. Felicitas is fre- 
quently confounded with St. Symphorosa (q. v.), and it is not 
improbable that her legend was merely a Christian recrudes- 
cence of the Jewish story. 

Mother and sons have each left behind a bewildering number 
of bodies. Pope Benedict IX. gave the bodies of three of the 
latter saints, Philip, Juvenal, and Felix, to the Bishop of Pader- 
born. The body of a fourth, Alexander, was translated by Wal- 
bert, son of Witikind, to Wildeshusen, in Westphalia. In the 
Middle Ages the body of St. Felicitas was among the relics pos- 
sessed by the church of Minden. So far, so good. But all seven 
of the bodies of the sons are shown in the church of St. Stephen 
at Bologna, and the full complement of eight bodies, mother and 
sons, is preserved in Bavaria, in the monastery of Ottobeuren, 
whither they were translated in the ninth century, and in Italy 
both in the cathedral of Montefiascone and the church of St. 
John at Pavia. 

According to Saussaye, the bones of all eight were likewise 
translated to Sens, in France. Their loss at the French Eevo- 
lution would have been greatly to be deplored had not all of 
these holy people left so many replicas of their bodies scattered 
among the churches of Christendom. 

Ferragosto, a relic of the ancient Augustan games which 
still survives locally in Tuscany and the Eoman provinces. It 
is celebrated on the 1st of August with rustic games and dances, 
the master of ceremonies being a mummer known for the nonce 
as Ferragosto, crowned with a cap of gilt paper and bearing a 
bed-quilt by way of mantle, who personifies the festival. This 
figure reappears on other rural fetes, such as May 1 {Calendi 
Maggio), Mid-Lent {Mezza Quaresima), and the Epiphany. He 
is usually called upon to recount the marvellous history of him- 
self and of his brother and sister holidays. 

Festspiel of Rothenburg. An annual festival celebrated in 
Eothenburg in honor of the liberation of the town after its cap- 
ture by Tilly during the Thirty Years' War. 

At that time, and indeed until 1803, Eothenburg was a free 
city. It took an active part in the Peasants' War of 1525, and 
in the Thirty Years' War of the following century. It was in 
the course of the latter, in 1631, that the celebrated Tilly ap- 
peared before Eothenburg and demanded its capitulation. This 
the citizens refused, with the result that the gallant little town 
was besieged and taken. Tilly and his generals proceeded to 



426 CURIOSITIES OF 

the Eathhaus, and demanded the municipal keys of the burgo- 
master. At the same time Tilly imposed a fine of thirty thousand 
thalers, and garrisoned the town with his soldiers. 

vThe burgomaster pleaded in vain for some mitigation of the pen- 
alty, until the victorious general, after remaining for some time 
unmoved by his entreaties, conceived the extraordinary idea 
of offering to restore the freedom of the town on condition that 
one of the inhabitants should come forward and empty at one 
draught an immense beaker of wine, containing about three and 
a half litres (over three quarts). This was an unheard-of feat 
even in those hard-drinking days, and for some time his offer 
remained unaccepted. The opportunity of freeing the town 
from a foreign yoke seemed, however, too important to be lost, 
and accordingly a patriotic citizen named Nusch resolved to 
attempt the difficult task imposed by the conqueror. As a 
matter of fact, he drained the beaker at one draught, and, al- 
though tradition relates that a severe illness followed the feat, 
still he saved the town, for Tilly kept his word, and restored 
the independence of Eothenburg. 

Fierucolone. A festival which until recent years took place 
in Florence on the 7th of September, the day before the Nativity 
of the Virgin, when the female peasants of Casentino and the 
mountains of Pistoja came to offer up their prayers before the 
miraculous image of the Madonna dell' Annunziata. " During 
this festival, the streets of Florence, and especially those near 
L' Annunziata, present the appearance of a city given up to fire 
and plunder. Crowds of boys run about shaking their blazing 
fierucolone, which are torches of oiled paper fixed at the end of 
long reeds. These noisy urchins pursue each other with sticks, 
and the streets resound with shrill whistles and the clangor of 
pieces of old metal, accompanied by the discordant shouts and 
bowlings of the populace. There is in this strange festivity 
a remarkable affinity with the game of torches celebrated in 
ancient days at Athens. The players ran about the city with 
torches, which they transferred to each other, without pausing 
in their career ; and those who ceased to run, or whose torches 
were extinguished, were hooted at and even beaten by the pop- 
ulace. Lucretius drew from this game a simile which he applied 
to the course of human life and the rapid extinction of successive 
generations : 

Et quasi cursores, vitse lampada tradunt." 

{Blackwood's Magazine^ July, 1829, p. 59.) 

Fillan, St. A popular Scotch saint, said to have been an 
abbot of Pittenweem, Fife, in the seventh century. He retired 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 427 

to lead a hermit life in the wilds of Glenmorchie, Perthshire, 
where, when the oil ran dry and his lamp failed him, he could 
extract sufficient light from his left hand to guide his right in 
setting down the substance of his pious meditations. His fes- 
tival occurs on the reputed anniversary of his death, January 9 
(649). 

His name is still attached to the ruins of a chapel, a bed of 
rock, and a holy pool or well, at a place called in honor of the 
saint Strathfillan. The waters of St. Fillan's Well had peculiar 
efficacy in cases of insanity. The manner in which patients 
were treated is thus described by the minister of the parish in 
1843: 

" The ceremony was performed, after sunset, on the first day 
of the quarter, O. S., and before sunrise next morning. The 
dipped persons were instructed to take three stones from the 
bottom of the pool, and, walking three times round each of three 
cairns on the bank, throw a stone into each. They were next 
conveyed to the ruins of St. Fillan's Chapel, and in a corner 
called St. Fillan's Bed they were laid on their back, and left tied 
all night. If the next morning they were found loose, the cure 
was deemed perfect, and thanks returned to the saint. 

" The pool is still visited, not by parishioners, for they have no 
faith in its virtue, but by people from other and distant locaHties. 
We have not heard of any being cured; but the prospects of the 
ceremony, especially in a cold winter evening, might be a good 
test for persons pretending insanity." (JVew Statistical Account 
of Scotland, vol. x. p. 1088.) 

Another well of St. Fillan is in the county of Eenfrew, which 
issues from a rock near the church of Houston and Eillolan. 

This spring spurted originally, according to tradition, from the 
top of a hill, but removed itself to the base of the rock about a 
quarter of a mile farther south. The minister of the parish 
says, towards the end of last century, — 

" It is still visited by valetudinary people, especially on the 1st 
of May and 1st of August. No fewer than seventy persons 
visited it in May and August, 1791. The invahds, whether men, 
women, or children, walk or are carried round the well three 
times in a direction deisul (q. v.), that is, from east to west, ac- 
cording to the course of the sun. They all drink of the water, 
and bathe in it. These operations are accounted a certain rem- 
edy for various diseases. . . . All the invalids throw a white 
stone on the saint's cairn, and leave behind, as tokens of their 
confidence and gratitude, some rags of linen or woollen cloth. 
The rock on the summit of the hill formed of itself a chair for 
the saint, which still remains. Those who complain of rheuma- 
tism in the back must ascend the hill, sit in the chair, then lie 



428 CURIOSITIES OF 

down on their back and be pulled by the legs to the bottom of 
the hill. This operation is still performed, and reckoned very 
efficacious." {Old Statistical Account of Scotland^ vol. xi. p. 181.) 

Shortly after this account was written the well was filled up 
with stones, to put an end to the superstition. 

One of the most interesting of ancient relics, the Quigrich or 
crosier of St. Fillan, came to light in 1782 in an accidental man- 
ner. An Englishman travelling in the Highlands in that year 
was asked at Killin, on the borders of Loch Tay, if he would 
like to see the Quigrich, — a relic much respected in those parts. 
He was taken to a poor cottage, where, to his amazement, he was 
shown the crook of a crosier made of silver, richly chased with 
delicate cuttings, and jewelled. Besides its interest as an ancient 
relic, the article was intrinsically valuable, for it weighed some 
seven or eight pounds. No less remarkable than the discovery 
of so valuable a piece of plate in a poor Highland cottage was 
the history connected with its possession. It was in the hands 
of a descendant of the house of Dowe, the hereditary keepers 
of the relic, who in their poverty had not deserted their charge. 
In the fifteenth century a solemn inquisition was held to decide 
where the privilege of the custody of the relic was vested. A 
royal letter of the same century by James III. confirms it to 
the family of Dowe ; and so lately as the year 1734 we find this 
letter produced and recorded in the public register like a title to 
landed property. Though the house of Dowe were enabled to 
keep their trust, it was not their good fortune to retain their 
country. The poor cottager emigrated, and took the crosier 
with him, and now, if it still exists, it is somewhere in Canada. 

The conditions under which it was said to have fallen into the 
hands of its hereditary custodiers were indeed sufficient to inspire 
them with a proud tenacity. It was connected with the most 
glorious event in the national history. King Robert the Bruce 
desired that the relics of St. Fillan should be borne before him 
in the field of Bannockburn. Accordingly, the shrine in which 
they were usually contained was placed in the king's tent. "As 
he was making his prayers', the case suddenly opened and clapped 
to again. The king's chaplain, being present, astonished there- 
with, went to the altar where the case stood, and, finding the arm 
within it, he cried to the king and others that were present, how 
there was a great miracle wrought, confessing that he brought 
the empty case to the field, if anything chanced to the army 
otherwise than well. The king, very joyful of this miracle, 
passed the remnant of the night in prayer and thanksgiving.' 
Thus speaks Hector Boece ; and the family of Dowe asserted 
that their ancestor had been appointed custodier of the relics on 
the field of battle in place of the faithless priest. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 429 

The ancient bell of the chapel believed to have been St. Fillan's 
bell continued till the beginning of the nineteenth century to lie 
loose on a grave-stone in the churchyard, ready to be used, as 
it occasionally was, in the ceremonial for the cure of lunatics. 
Popular belief asserted that it was useless to attempt to carry it 
away, as it would always return. A curious and covetous Eng- 
lish tourist put this belief to the test, and the bell has never 
since been heard from. 

Filomena, Filumina, or Philomena, St. A supposititious 
virgin martyr who has achieved great popularity in Naples, 
Florence, Yenice, and even Paris, where her festival is celebrated 
on August 10. The legend upon which her saintship is based 
is a modern and very curious one. In the year 1802 a tomb 
containing the skeleton of a young female and the mutilated in- 
scription •' — lumina pax te cum fi — " was discovered in the cata- 
comb of Priscilla at Eome. It was transferred to the Lateran. 
A priest in the train of a Neapolitan prelate despatched to con- 
gratulate Pius YII. on his return from Paris begged for some 
relics. The newlj' discovered treasure was given to him, the 
inscription being filled up and translated as " Saint Philumena, 
peace be with you." 

" Another priest," says Mrs. Jameson, in her " Sacred and 
Legendary Art" (s. v.), " whose name is suppressed because of his 
great humility, was favored by a vision in the broad noonday, in 
which he beheld the glorious virgin Filomena, who was pleased 
to reveal to him that she had suffered death for preferring the 
Christian faith, and her vow of chastity, to the addresses of the 
Emperor, who wished to make her his wife. This vision leaving 
much of her history obscure, a certain young artist, whose name 
is also suppressed, — perhaps because of his great humility, — was 
informed in a vision that the Emperor alluded to was Diocletian ; 
and at the same time the torments and persecutions suffered by 
the Christian virgin Filomena, as well as her wonderful con- 
stancy, were also revealed to him. There were some difficulties 
in the way of the Emperor Diocletian, which inclines the writer 
of the historical account to adopt the opinion that the young 
artist in his vision may have made a mistake, and that the 
Emperor may have been his colleague, Maximian. The facts, 
however, now admitted of no doubt ; and the relics were carried 
by the priest Francesco da Lucia to Naples ; they were enclosed 
in a case of wood resembling in form the human body. This 
figure was habited in a petticoat of white satin, and over it a 
crimson tunic, after the Greek fashion ; the face was painted to 
represent nature ; a garland of flowers was placed on the head, 
and in the hands a lily and a javelin with the point reversed, to 



430 CURIOSITIES OF 

express her purity and her martyrdom ; then she was laid in a 
half-sitting posture in a sarcophagus, of which the sides were 
glass ; and after lying for some time in state, in the chapel of 
the Torres family in the church of Saint Angiolo, she was car- 
ried in procession to Magnano, a little town about twenty miles 
from Naples, amid the acclamations of the people, working 
many and surprising miracles by the way. Such is the legend 
of St. Filomena, and such the authority on which she has become 
one of the most fashionable saints in Italy. Jewels to the value 
of many thousand crowns have been offered at her shrine, and 
solemnly placed round the neck of her image, or suspended to 
her girdle." 

The cult of St. Filomena received a great impetus from the 
famous Jean Marie Baptiste Yianney (1786-1859), the cure of 
Ars, in France, who seems to have taken her as a symbol of the 
ideal woman. The good cure established her worship at Ars 
with great enthusiasm, and was persuaded that she did great 
things for him and for everybody whom he recommended to her. 
One of the most frequent miracles which he wrought through 
her intercession was a repetition of the miracle of the loaves 
and fishes, with the fishes left out. He would turn a small quan- 
tity of meal into an enormous number of loaves. A fine church 
dedicated to St. Philomena in Ars preserves the memory alike of 
the saint and of her saintly worshipper. 

First-Born, Ransom of the. Among the Jews the first-born 
son in every family was solemnly consecrated to the Supreme 
Eeing who had spared the Jews while he destroyed the first-born 
of the Egyptians. Hence a priest or descendant of Aaron visited 
the household on the thirtieth day after the birth, and, seizing 
the child, made a feint of carrying it off; but it was invariably 
ransomed by the father for such sum as seemed adequate to his 
means. In case the father, however, died before the thirtieth 
day, the widow was not obhged to pay the ransom. She merely 
hung around the infant's neck a little plate of silver on which 
were engraved words indicating that he had not been ransomed 
and that he belonged to the great Sacrificator. He was obliged 
to ransom himself when he came of age. 

First- Foot. In the folk-lore of Great Britain, the first person 
who steps across the threshold on Christmas or New Year, also 
the first person met on certain occasions. Good or ill luck is 
supposed to follow according to the personality of the first-foot. 

In the north of England it is ill luck for an inmate to go forth 
from a house on New Year till some one has entered it, and good 
luck or ill luck for the year depends on whether man or woman 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 431 

enters first. In Lancashire a light-haired man is as unlucky as 
a woman, and it has even become a special calling for dark- 
favored men to hire themselves out for liquor and an alms to 
"take the New Year in." In Worcestershire luck is insured by 
laying hands on the first carol-singer who presents himself at 
the front door, leading him through the house, and letting him 
out at the back. 

At Filey, England, on Christmas morning before break of day 
there existed formerly the greatest uproar, by numbers of boys 
going round from house to house, rapping at every door, and 
roaring out, " I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new 
year," which words were vociferated again and again till the 
family awoke and admitted the clamorous visitor, — who, if he 
were the first^ was treated with money or cheese and ginger- 
bread, which were also distributed, but less liberally, to subse- 
quent visitors. No persons (boys excepted) ever presumed to go 
out of doors till the threshold had been consecrated by the 
entrance of a male. Females had no part in this matter, and 
if a damsel lovely as an angel entered first, her fair form was 
viewed with horror as an image of death. (Cole : Antiquities 
of Filey, 1828, p. 137.) 

In Sheffield, a male must be the first to enter a house on the 
morning of both Christmas Day and New Year's Day ; but there 
is no distinction as to complexion or color of hair. In the houses 
of the more opulent manufacturers, these first admissions are 
often accorded to choirs of workpeople, who, as " waits," proceed 
at an early hour and sing before the houses of their employers 
and friends Christmas carols and hymns, always commencing 
with that beautiful composition, — 

Christians, awake, salute the happy morn 
Whereon the Saviour of mankind was born. 

On expressing their good wishes to the inmates, they are gen- 
erally rewarded with something warm and occasionally with a 
pecuniary present. 

Among the class called " respectable," but not manufacturers, 
a previous arrangement is often made, — that a boy, the son of a 
friend, shall come and be first admitted, receiving for his good 
wishes a Christmas-box of sixpence or a shilling. The houses 
of the artisans and poor are successively besieged by a host of 
gamins, who, soon after midnight, spread themselves over the 
town, shouting at the doors, and through key-holes, as follows : 

(j^u wish ya a murry Chrismas, 
A 'appy new year, 
A pockit full of money 
An' a cellar full o' beer. 



432 CURIOSITIES OF 

V God bless the maester of this 'ouse, 

The mistriss all-so, 
An' all the little childrun 
That round the table go. 

A apple, a pear, a plom, an' a cherry ; 
A sup o' good ale mak' a man murry. 

The same house will not admit a second boy. One is sufficient 
to protect it from any ill luck that might otherwise happen. A 
penny is the usual gratuity for this service. (JVotes and Queries, 
Third Series, vol. v. p. 395.) 

In Scotland first-footing used to be a far more complicated 
aff"air than in England, involving hot pint, — i.e., spiced ale and 
spirits, — cakes, short-bread, and what not ; to say nothing of a 
more tender interpretation of the custom, when the first-comer 
by prearrangement met his sweetheart and obtained the privi- 
lege of a kiss as her first-foot. Often it was the maiden who 
made the first advances. If she had reason to believe that some 
likely lad looked kindly upon her, she would coax him to be her 
first-foot on New Year's morning, and the hint when accepted 
generally ended by a marriage on some succeeding New Year's 
Day. In Edinburgh even to this day domestic servants invite 
their sweethearts to be their first-foot — for good luck, and, if 
need be, for marriage. The hour of visit of the first-foot was as 
near as possible just after midnight. In some instances parties 
of young men would visit a house where there were several 
young girls, when a carousal would take place, with drinking, 
eating, singing, and dancing, and sometimes a fight at the end 
between jealous rivals. 

The family visited of course expected some one to be their 
first-foot, and had made preparations accordingly in the shape 
of refreshments. Sometimes the household were aroused by the 
visitor, sometimes only the juvenile femininity who happened to 
be his object. 

The whiskey-bottle has nowadays entirely superseded the more 
picturesque, but probably hardly less intoxicating, hot pint. The 
reason for both is the same. Everywhere it seems to have been 
considered most important for luck in the coming year to the 
family on which he calls that the first-foot should not make his 
entry empty-handed. Another analogous superstition is that 
nothing must be carried out of a house in the morning of the 
new 3'ear till something has been brought in. Sometimes in 
addition or in lieu of his whiskey-bottle the first-foot carries 
short-bread, oatcakes, or sowens, — the latter being a concoc- 
tion made from the husks of oats, which are allowed to steep 
till they become sour. The sowens is frequently sprinkled for 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 433 

good luck on the doors and windows of the house visited, with 
a brush similar to that used by whitewashers. 

Besides New Year's Day and Old Yule there were other occa- 
sions when some attention was paid to the first person met, and 
omens were drawn regarding the fortune or misfortune which he 
or she boded to any particular enterprise in hand, as, for instance, 
when going to or from a wedding, when taking a child to church 
to be baptized, when taking the first yoking of oxen to plough 
in spring, or when going fishing or fowling. The following class 
of persons were considered lucky first-footers : friends, neigh- 
bors, and all well-wishers, a kind man, a good man, a sweetheart, 
people who spread out their feet, those born with their feet fore- 
most, a man on horseback, a man with a horse and cart. The 
list of persons unlucky as first-footers is much larger, and com- 
prises deformed people and criminals, red-headed people, and 
women in general, though there are gradations of unluckiness 
attached to different women. 

First-foot was a term also applied in Scotland to the winner in 
the race known as " running the braize," which was an old wedding 
custom. The bridal party would return from kirk in the follow- 
ing order : first the fathers of the contracting parties, then the 
newly married couple, behind them the best man and the first 
maid, and the rest in couples as might be mutually arranged. 
When some distance from the young couple's house, where the 
mother of the groom was waiting, a few of the young men 
would start on a race home. The one who reached home first 
and announced the completion of the ceremony was presented 
with a bottle of whiskey and a glass, with which he returned to 
meet the marriage procession. The bride was entitled to the 
first drink from the bottle, and all esteemed it an honor to par- 
take of the hospitality of the " first-foot," as the winner was 
called. This custom is but a relic of the Scandinavian usages of 
the earliest ages. 

Flag-Day. June 14, as the anniversary of the adoption of 
the stars and stripes by the Continental Congress in the year 
1777, is observed as a holiday under this name in many of the 
States. In ]N'ew York it is especially celebrated by the public- 
school children. At nine o'clock in the morning every school 
raises a flag on its roof. The principal then gives a lecture to 
the pupils on the origin, history, and significance of the flag. 

The first recognition of Flag-Day by the New York schools 
was on June 14, 1889, when Professor George Bolch, the head 
of a free kindergarten for the poor, established the custom, 
after which it was adopted by the Board of Education. The 
American G-uard, composed of pupils of the public schools, is an 

28 



434 CURIOSITIES OF 

outgrowth of the patriotism instilled in youthful minds by the 
observance of Flag-Day. 

In Chicago Flag-Day is observed on the less logical date of 
October 31. 

Flagellants. A sect of fanatics who started in Perugia in 
1260, flourished for a brief while in Italy, and were almost for- 
gotten, when the ravages of the Black Plague in Europe (1347- 
1349) caused their revival, appearing first in Magdeburg in 1349. 
Penetrated with the belief that their sins had called down the 
vengeance of heaven, vast processions of penitents passed 
through the streets, armed with scourges, lashing themselves 
and one another until the " blood gushed out." They marched 
with torches and banners, at night, in the winter, and penetrated 
into the solitudes of mountain and forest. The penance was 
repeated twice a day, — morning and evening, — and continued for 
thirty-three days and a half, in memory of Christ's earthly life. 

The greatest enthusiasm was excited on their behalf through- 
out Germany. It often happened that after they had lashed 
themselves in the churches they were entertained in the market- 
place. A band of Flagellants came over to England and operated 
freely on themselves in the streets of London. The practical 
English mind, however, could not discover the use of such an 
extended penance, and it is stated that the Flagellants did not 
succeed in making a single convert in England. 

Clement lY. and succeeding pontiffs issued bulls against them, 
and they were condemned by the Council of Constance in 1414. 

Flitting-Day. The name given in Scotland to the 25th of May, 
which, as the Whitsunday term, Old Style, is the day for renewing 
old leases or making new ones. The Scotch generally lease their 
houses by the year, and are thus at every twelve-month's end 
able to shift their place of abode. Accordingly, every Candle- 
mas a Scotch family gets an opportunity of considering whether 
it will, in the language of the country, sit or flit. The landlord 
or his agent calls to learn the decision on this point; and if 
"flit" is the resolution, he takes measures by advertising to 
obtain a new tenant. The two or three days following upon the 
Purification, therefore, become distinguished by a feathering of 
the streets with boards projected from the windows, intimating 
" A House to Let." (^Ghamhers's Book of Days^ vol. i. p. 679.) 

Floralia or Florales Lrudi. Ancient Eoman games in honor 
of Flora, the goddess of flowers, which lasted five days, from 
April 28 to May 2. Tradition assigned their institution to 
Romulus. Pliny refers it to the command of an oracle in the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 435 

Sibylline books in 238 B.C., but we have little authentic informa- 
tion about it till the observance was restored some sixty years 
later by the sedile Servilius, acting under orders of the Senate, 
because the buds and blossoms of that year (173 B.C.) had suf- 
fered from the inclemency of the weather. Flora, according to 
the received tradition, was a courtesan, and left to the city wealth 
acquired by her profligacy. Hence^ross and unbridled licen- 
tiousness characterized her feast. Al the attendant theatrical 
exhibitions actresses were required to appear naked on the stage 
and to amuse the people with indecent gestures and dances. The 
last day was devoted to a beast-hunt in the Circus, but there 
were no races. It is probable that the Floralia were originally 
rural festivals observed both in Italy and in Greece, which be- 
came corrupted after their introduction into towns, and this may 
have accounted for the uncomplimentary story of the goddess 
Flora, with whose worship the celebration had then come to be 
connected. 

For some reason or other, the garden in classical myth and 
literature was redolent of associations the reverse of fragrant. 
Priapus, of evil repute, was its presiding deity. It gave its 
name to the most sensual and unmanly of the ancient schools of 
philosophy, as is implied in Praed's familiar lines on St. Paul 
preaching at Athens : 

And the fair garden's rose-encircled child 
Smiled unbelief, and shuddered as he smiled. 

Flowers, Battle of. One of the most beautiful of the Oar- 
nival ceremonials. This is still seen at its best in Mce, where 
the custom originated. It is the correct thing for as many of 
the inhabitants as can get a vehicle of any sort to drive up and 
down the Promenade des Anglais for several hours, greeting 
their acquaintances as they pass by dashing a bunch of flowers 
in their faces, — a salutation which is immediately returned with 
interest. These bouquets generally fall wide of the mark they 
are aimed at, and are picked up by a swarm of boys, who rush 
in and out between the carriages on purpose to catch the falling 
posies, which they immediately sell to some one else for any 
price they can command, usually a pretty steep one. It is one 
' of the rules of the game that all the carriages are decorated. 
/\\But flowers in Nice are rare, and, although you may now and 
^' then see a carriage wreathed with mimosa and camellias, or 
smothered in violets even to the spokes of the wheels, it is onlj^ 
the wealthy who can command such luxuries, and the poorer 
classes content themselves with a few green leaves and simple 
floral decorations ; or, more usually, they surround the equipage 



436 CURIOSITIES OF 

with what might be called a pinafore of white calico, adorned 
with strips of colored calico sewed on at intervals all over it. 
To and fro pass the carriages with unwearied diligence, tossing 
bouquets from hand to hand as if the occupants were playing 
ball. Now and then the line is broken by a horseman in some 
masquerade, and maskers also mingle among the spectators on 
the sidewalk. 

Battles of flowers dissociated from the Carnival time are now 
frequently celebrated in April, May, or June at many places 
on the continent of Europe and in England. A famous one is 
that at Yentnor, in the Isle of Wight, during the entire first week 
in April. Flags and bunting adorn most of the streets and roads 
in and about Yentnor, and grand stands are erected at convenient 
spots whence the procession can be viewed. The grounds of the 
Koyal Hotel are used for the battle-ground. The week's festivi- 
ties close with the distribution of prizes to the best decorated 
carriages in the procession, and a grand ball in the evening. 

Flo'wer-Sermons. At two churches in London, one that of 
St. James, Mitre Court, Aldgate, the other that of St. Katherine 
Cree, Leadenhall, it is the custom on the evening of Whitsun 
Tuesday for the pastor to preach a sermon from a text having 
special reference to flowers. This is known as the Flower-Ser- 
mon. The most popular was also the one first instituted, that at 
St. Katherine Cree, where the custom was begun by the rector, 
Rev. Dr. W. M. Whittemore, in the year 1853. " I thought," he 
explained, "that it would be a good opportunity of leading our 
youthful hearers to a closer contemplation of God's wisdom and 
love as manifested by the beautiful and fragrant flowers which 
He scatters around in such rich profusion." On this occasion 
offerings of flowers adorn the pillars and the pulpit, and every 
young person attending the service is requested to carry a bou- 
quet. Moncure D. Conway has given us in Harper's Monthly, 
vol. xlii. p. 902, an account of the Flower-Sermon as he heard it 
preached in St. Katherine in 1870. " In some respects," he says, 
" the display of flowers was disappointing. Bouquets were 
attached to the pillars, and one or two were on the pulpit ; but 
the floral decorations of the church were stinted. It had been 
advertised, ' Each young person attending this special service is 
requested to carry a bouquet of flowers ;' but flowers in London 
are luxuries, and the people who dwell around St. Katherine 
Cree are all poor. Yet a goodly number of those who came 
brought flowers, many wearing them in their bonnets or coats. 
Occasionally a smile passed as some ladies of uncertain age came 
in, bearing particularly large and aggressive nosegays, which 
seemed to assert that they were the youngest of the 'young 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 437 

persons' mentioned in the hand-bills. But to most of those who 
came the occasion had evidently a deeper and more serious 
meaning. . . . Then came in the children, with their radiant 
faces, sunshiny hair, and diamond eyes, each waving his or her 
flower like a banner of childhood. 

'' At length the vast congregation is still, the organ greets us 
with a cheerful voluntary, and the service begins. It opens with 
a hymn sung to the tune of ' Hampton :' 

"Spared to another spring, 

We raise our grateful songs : 
'Tis pleasant, Lord, thy praise to sing, 
For praise to thee belongs. 

' ' Ten thousand different flowers 
To thee sweet offerings bear. 
And tuneful birds, in shady bowers, 
Warble thy tender care. 

* * -Sfr * * * 

"While earth itself decays, 
Our souls can never die ; 
Prepare them all to sing thy praise 
In better songs on high ! 

"All join in the singing; every tongue is loosed; the old walls 
fairly blossom with jubilant notes. The old organ catches the 
inspiration, and breaks out into glad peals that must have sur- 
prised itself Then follow the intoned psalms, set to the music 
of Tallis, — great mnsic, now sobbing with penitence, now lumi- 
nous as with light breaking through clouds. What psalms are 
these for the poor of London to sing and hear? 'The mountains 
shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteous- 
ness. He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the 
children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.' 
' He shall come down like rain on the mown grass.' ' The earth 
is satisfied with the fruit of thy works.' ' The trees of the Lord 
are full of sap ; the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted ; 
where the birds make their nests.' 'He appointed the moon for 
seasons ; the sun knoweth his going down.' ' O Lord, how 
manifold are thy works ! in wisdom hast thou made them all : 
the earth is full of thy riches.' Thus sang these poor people. 
They came, most of them, from dens of poverty and toil, from 
hopelessness and pain ; but the little optimists of nature, the 
flowers, had touched them, and they sang as if there were not a 
woe nor a want in the earth. . . . 

" The preacher of the occasion was the Eev. Dr. Whittemore, 
well known as the editor of the juvenile periodicals Sunshine and 
Golden Hours, and for many writings for the young, a tall, large, 



438 CURIOSITIES OF 

and handsome man, with a broad, genial face, and an amount of 
humor and vivacity in him which find themselves under a bushel 
in sombre St. James's, where he usually preaches." 

Fools, Feast of. This was the general name for a series of 
burlesque festivals which are said to have been introduced into 
the Christian Church by Theophylact, Patriarch of Constanti- 
nople. They were obviously recrudescences of the ancient 
Roman Festa Stultorum. Beginning on Christmas with the 
Feast of the Ass {q. v.), which was a day of general rejoicing, 
the chief holidays in the season were given up respectively to 
various ranks of the lower clergy or church officials. Thus, St. 
Stephen's Day was specially reserved for the deacons, the Cir- 
cumcision for priests. Innocents' Day for the choir-boys, Epiphany 
for the sub deacons, etc. 

The ceremonies were substantially the same on all these occa- 
sions. 

In cathedral churches in France and Italy a bishop and an 
archbishop of fools were elected. The election was confirmed 
with much buffoonery, a caricature of ordination. Then the 
pseudo-prelates were vested and gave solemn benediction to 
the people, holding pastoral staff or archiepiscopal crosier. But 
in exempt churches (i.e., churches depending immediately on 
the Holy See) a Papa Fatuorum or Pope of Fools was chosen, 
amidst similar buffoonery, and was invested with the Papal 
insignia. 

These pontiffs were assisted by the clergy. Priests and clerks 
performed all manner of impieties during the divine service, 




Humors of the Feast of Fools. 



some masked, or with their faces painted, others dressed as 
women, dancing in the choir and singing obscene songs. The 
deacons and subdeacons ate cakes and sausages at the altar, 
played cards and dice on it, and burned their old shoes in the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



439 



censers with which they incensed the host and the book of the 
Gospels. 

After the mass was ended, every one ran, jumped, and danced 
about the church ; some stripped themselves naked and were 
drawn about the streets in a manure-cart and pelted the people 
with dung. At intervals the cart stopped, and those within 
evoked laughter by their indecent postures. 

Beleth, doctor of theology of Paris, in 1182 wrote that during 
Christmas four dances took place in the churches, — one of the 
deacons, another of the priests, a third of the choir-boys, and 
a fourth of the subdeacons ; that in some churches at this time 
bishops and archbishops joined in the revel, and played dice, ball, 
tennis, and other games; that they danced and made merriment 
for their clergy in their cathedrals, and in the monasteries before 
the monks, and that this diversion was known as the Liberty 
of December. 

From a complaint addressed by Mathurin de Neure to Gas- 
sendi in 1645 it would appear that even at that date Holy 
Innocents' Day was celebrated in some French monasteries with 
a license that allied it to the Feast of Fools and the ancient 
Eoman Saturnalia. "jNever," says he, "did pagans solemnize 
with such extravagance their superstitious festivals as the Feast 
of the Innocents is cele- 
brated at Antibes by 
the Cordeliers. Neither 
the Eeligious nor the 
Guardians go to the 
choir that day. The 
lay-brothers, the cab- 
bage-cutters, those who 




Humors of the Feast of Fools. 



work in the kitchen, 
and those who till the 
gardens, occupy their 
places in the church. 
They don the sacer- 
dotal garments reverse 
side out. They hold 
in their hands books 
turned upside down, and pretend to read thera through spectacles 
in which for glass have been substituted bits of orange-peel, 
which make them look so hideous and alarming that one must 
see them to believe it, especially after they have blown into the 
censers which they carry, insomuch that their faces are covered 
with ashes. They do not sing hymns, or psalms, or masses, as 
is customary ; they mutter confused words, and utter cries as 
foolish, disagreeable, and discordant as those of a troop of grunt- 



440 CURIOSITIES OF ■ 

ing swine. And indeed those brute beasts could render as well 
as they do the office of the day. For it would be better to 
bring brute beasts into church, to praise God in their own 
manner, than to suifer this sort of folk to appear therein, who 
make a mock of God while pretending to praise him, and are 
more foolish and senseless than the most foolish and senseless 
beasts." (Quoted in Picart's Ceremonies et Coutumes, vol. viii. 
Part II. p. 14.) 

Forefathers' Day. The 22d of December is celebrated by 
New Englanders and by New England Societies in many of the 
large towns of the United States as the anniversary of the land- 
ing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. 
The first celebration was in Plymouth itself in 1769, when the 
Old Colony Club gave a dinner at Thomas Southworth's inn in 
North Street. At every annual recurrence of the day in that 
town the descendants of the Pilgrims have made this their 
chief rallying-place. Anniversary orations by Webster, Everett, 
Choate, Winthrop, and Sumner, and anniversary poems by Bry- 
ant, E. H. Stoddard, and John Boyle O'Eeilly, have added to the 
glory of the occasion. 

It is the Plymouth Old Colony Club, therefore, which is re- 
sponsible for choosing December 22 as the date of the final debar- 
kation of the Pilgrims from the Mayflower and the beginning of 
the settlement of Plymouth. Yet this final and proper " land- 
ing" did not take place until January 4, 1621, and though an 
exploring party did land somewhere near the coast of Plymouth 
on December 21, 1620, there is no evidence whatever that there 
was any Englishman in Plymouth Bay on the 22d of December, 
1620, and all the probabilities are against it. 

Let us go over the facts of the case. On November 9, afier 
sixty-five days on the ocean, the anxious watchers on the little 
Mayflower sighted the low shore of Cape Cod. On the 11th the 
Mayflower cast anchor in the harbor of what is now Province- 
town. Several expeditions were sent out to explore the land, 
but none found any satisfactory abiding-place. On December 
16 (or December 6, Old Style) a party of seventeen started on 
a more extended quest. Among them were Miles Standish, Wil- 
liam Bradford, and Edward Winslow\ The last two have told 
the story, which is known as " Mourt's Eelation" (Mourt being 
probably George Morton, who procured the publication of the 
Diary in London). Says the Eelation, " Wednesday the sixt of 
December wee set out." It proceeds carefully day by day until 
the end of the week, when the explorers landed on Clark's 
Island. These words and this punctuation then follow: "And 
here wee made our Eandevous all that day, being Saturday, 10. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 441 

of December, on the Sabbath day wee rested, and on Munday 
we sounded the Harbour, and found it a very good Harbour for 
our shipping, we marched also into the Land, and found divers 
(fcorne fields, and little running brookes, a place very good for 
situation, so we returned to our Ship againe with good newes 
to the rest of our people, which did much comfort their hearts." 

Now, if the 6th of December was Wednesday, the 10th must 
have been Sunday. It has been pointed out, therefore, that the 
English printers must have misplaced the period, which should 
have come after Saturday. Change the comma after Saturday 
to a period, and the proper reading is restored. The 10th of 
December is made to be the date of Sunday, as it was. 

The Old Colony Club of Plymouth, in the year 1769, reading 
Mourt with the erroneous punctuation which made Saturday 
the lOth^ of course imagined that Monday was the 12th, and, 
adding ten days for diiference of the Old and New Styles, called 
Forefathers' Day the 22d. Hence a little comma is responsible 
for setting the sons of New England, the world over, to eating 
their anniversary banquets on the 22d instead of the 21st of 
December. 

But was the sounding of the harbor and marching into the 
land and finding divers corne fields by the exploring party on the 
21st of December the '' landing of the Pilgrims" associated with 
the tradition of the rock ? (See Plymouth Rock.) The tradi- 
tion of the landing comes from Elder Thomas Faunce, who in 
1741, being then ninety-one years old, came to remonstrate 
against any injury to the rock from the building of a wharf 
Elder Faunce had heard the story from the first "planters, and 
it was transmitted through Mrs. White, who died in 1810, ninety- 
five years old, and Deacon Ephraim Spooner, who died in 1818, 
at the age of eighty-three. It is certainly more probable that 
the tradition of the landing would refer to that of the debarka- 
tion of the whole company and the beginning of the settlement 
than to that of a few explorers seeking a promising site for 
settlement. The great day in memory would certainly be that 
when the company came ashore on a spot already chosen, and 
planted their home in a new world. 

Now, that great day occurred much later. The little party 
of seventeen seem to have hurried back to the Mayflower lying 
in the Cape Cod harbor, twenty-six miles away. On the 25th 
of December, New Style, the ship started southward, and next 
day she anchored between Plymouth and Clark's Island. On 
the 28th and 29th there were further explorations, and, after 
hesitating in the choice between two places, on Wednesday, the 
30th, it was decided to settle upon the present site of Plymouth. 
But not until Monday, the 4th of January, 1621, was there a 



442 ^ CURIOSITIES OF 

general debarkation with the distinct purpose of founding a new- 
home ; and the landing was then undoubtedly made, with all the 
solemnity of emotion becoming men and women of the strong 
and deep character that made them pilgrims. 

Foresters' Fete. This revival of the ancient English arch- 
ery shows is now celebrated annually in the London Crystal 
Palace and its grounds, on August 24. The revival dates from 
1855. A grand procession of members of the Order of Foresters 
and the Juvenile Foresters, with bands, banners, and full regalia, 
is the feature of the out-door shows, while, in-doors, organ re- 
citals, concerts by brass bands, and theatrical shows keep the 
spectators amused and interested. But the London Daily Graphic 
in its report of the festival held in 1896 is fain to acknowledge 
that the pageant has no archaeological value : " We English are 
not given to pageantry, and in the organizing of historic pro- 
cessions are far behind the smallest German town, while as for 
the fetes constantly to be seen in Munich, England knows them 
not. There is a lamentable want of finish about all our attempts 
in this direction. No real forester of the days of Eobin Hood 
and Little John and Maid Marian ever presented the aspect of 
one of our 'foresters' of to-day. It was a rough business at any 
time to habitually frequent a forest in this country. From the 
poet's point of view it is charming to lie under the greenwood 
tree and to turn one's merry note unto the sweet bird's throat. 
But the enemy that the poet makes light of, — 'winter and rough 
weather,' — there was the rub ! It is certain that no forester 
who braved the elements in velvet and feathers and stage-boots 
could have escaped an early death from rheumatic fever. And 
so we must object to the traditional first-ruffian sort of costume 
which does duty nowadays for the habit of the merry men of 
Sherwood Forest. They wore a much less pretentious and more 
picturesque costume, from which feathers, except those of the 
gray goose on their shafts, were absent. Be this as it may, our 
latter-day Foresters go to the Palace to have a good time. They 
are not familiar with any forest (save the Forest of Epping), and 
do not trouble about bows of yew and gray goose feathers. As 
for cleaving a willow wand at six score, it is doubtful whether 
they could hit a haystack at half the distance. Their name is a 
mere shadow, which has flitted away into the dim past." 

Francis of Assisi, St., founder of the Franciscan order of 
monks. His festival is celebrated on October 4, the anniversary 
of his death. Another festival, in honor of his stigmata (see 
below), was instituted in 1304 by Pope Gregory XI., the 17th of 
September being the day chosen. St. Francis was born at 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 443 

Assisi, in Umbria, in 1182. His father was a rich wool-merchant. 
In his youth Francis was of a gay disposition and fond of pleas- 
ure. He fought in a war which broke out between Perugia and 
Assisi, was taken prisoner, and was incarcerated in a dungeon for 
a year. He subsequently became very ill, and his thoughts turned 
towards a religious life. He gave alms to the poor, and began 
to devote himself to the repairing of churches. He was thought 
by his family to be insane, and his father took him to the bishop, 
in whose presence Francis declared that henceforward he had 
no father, save his Father in heaven. Adopting a coarse brown 
robe, he devoted himself to the care of the poor and sick and to 
preaching. He soon gained followers, and founded an order 
which after some delay gained the approval of Pope Innocent 
III. He called his order " Fratri Minori," and established a rule 
with three vows, of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In 1219 
St. Francis went to preach to the Mohammedans; he was taken 
before the Sultan, and he offered to enter a fire with the priests 
of Islam to prove the truth of his creed. The Sultan sent him 
back to Italy. It was said that on his return to Assisi he be- 
held a vision of the crucifixion, and ever afterwards bore the 
stigmata of nails on his hands and feet and a wound in his 
side. He died on October 4, 1226, and was buried by his own 
request among malefactors outside the walls of his native city. 
Ten years later the church of San Francesco was built in his 
honor, and his body was removed thither on March 25, 1230. It 
is believed that the body still remains here, standing upright in 
a subterraneous vault under the high altar of the chapel in the 
middle of this spacious church. Some authorities assert that 
his heart and bowels, according to his desire, were taken out and 
laid under the altar which bears his name in the Portiuncula. 
But others deny that any division was made. Blood from the 
stigma on his side is kept in the cathedral at Eecanati. 

There are numberless legends connected with St. Francis, 
which form the subjects of numerous pictures. Many of them 
are illustrative of the saint's love for the lower animals. The 
marriage of St. Francis with the Lady Poverty, or with three 
maidens representing Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, is also 
a subject often met with in art. 

Francis Xavier, St. (1506-1552), patron saint and apostle of 
India, and one of the greatest names in the history of missionary 
enterprise. His festival is celebrated on December 3, though he 
died on December 2. A member of a noble family of Navarre, 
St. Francis was born at the ancestral castle of Xavier. At the 
age of twenty he became professor of philosophy at Beauvais. 
Among his pupils was Ignatius Loyola, who gradually gained 



444 CUniOSITlES OF 

a great influence over him and induced him to enter the religious 
life, and he became a member of the Society of Jesus which 
Loyola founded. He was sent by Loyola to India, whence he 
travelled to Japan. Many m'iracles are said to have been worked 
by him, and he made many converts. He died while on his way 
to China, on the island of Sanchan. His body was interred on 
the shore, but was later taken to Goa and placed in the college 
of St. Paul on March 15, 1554. On the occasion of this transla- 
tion several blind persons recovered their sight and others were 
healed of long-standing diseases. He was beatified by Paul Y. 
in 1554, and canonized by Gregory XY. in 1662. In 1774, by 
order of King John Y. of Portugal, the Archbishop of Goa, 
attended by the local dignitaries, performed a visitation of the 
relics of St. Francis Xavier. The body was found without the 
least bad odor, the face, breast, hands, and feet having suffered 
no corruption whatever, and seemed environed with a shining 
brightness. 

Freeman's March. An absurd custom which until the 
middle of the nineteenth century was annually performed on 
St. Mark's Day (April 25) at Alnwick, in Northumberland, Eng- 
land. It is said to date from April 25, 1209, when King John, 
attempting to ride across Alnwick Moor, then the Forest of 
Aidon, fell with his horse into a bog, w^here he stuck so fast that 
he was with difficulty rescued by his attendants. In high dud- 
geon he inserted into the city charter, by way both of memento 
and of punishment, a clause that for the future all new-created 
freemen should on St. Mark's Day pass on foot through that 
bog, which hence became known as the Freeman's Well. The 
townspeople entered into the humor of the thing, and in course 
of time, in proportion as the new-made freemen were more or 
less popular, the passage was made more or less difficult. A 
small rill of water was kept dammed up for a day or two pre- 
vious to the ceremony, by means of which the bog could be so 
thoroughly liquefied that a middle-sized man would find himself 
chin deep in mud and water in wading through it. Besides 
this, holes and trenches were not infrequently dug. Conse- 
quently the freemen often found themselves in imminent danger 
of suffocation. 

" Early in the morning of St. Mark's Day the houses of the 
new freemen are distinguished by a holly-tree planted before each 
door, as the signal for their friends to assemble and make merry 
with them. About eight o'clock the candidates for the franchise, 
being mounted on horseback and armed with swords, assemble 
in the market-place, where they are joined by the chamberlain 
and bailiff of the Duke of Northumberland, attended by two 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 445 

men armed with halberds. The young freemen arranged in 
order, with music playing before them and accompanied by a 
numerous cavalcade, march to the west end of the town, where 
they deliver their swords. They then proceed under the guidance 
of the moorgrieves through a part of their extensive domain, 
till they reach the ceremonial well. The sons of the oldest free- 
man have the honor of taking the first leap. On the signal 
being given they pass through the bog, each being allowed to 
use the method and pace which to him shall seem best, some 
running, some going slow, and some attempting to jump over 
suspected places, but all in their turns tumbhng and wallowing 
(^ike porpoises at sea, to the great amusement of the populace, 
who usually assemble in vast numbers on this occasion. After 
this aquatic excursion, they remount their horses and proceed 
to perambulate the remainder of their large common, of which 
they are to become free by their achievement. In passing the 
open part of the common the young freemen are obliged to 
alight at intervals and place a stone on a cairn as a mark of their 
boundary, till they come near a high hill called the Twinlaw or 
Tounlaw Cairns, when they set off at full speed, and contest the 
honor of arriving first on the hill, where the names of the free- 
men of Alnwick are called over. When arrived about two miles 
from the town they generally arrange themselves in order and, 
to prove their equestrian abilities, set off v^ith great speed and 
spirit over bogs, ditches, rocks, and rugged declivities till they 
arrive at Rottenrow Tower on the confines of the town, the 
foremost claiming the honor of what is termed ' winning the 
boundaries,' and of being entitled to the temporary triumphs of 
the day. Having completed the circuits, the young freemen, 
with sword in hand, enter the town in triumph,* preceded hy 
music, and accompanied by a large concourse of people in car- 
riages, etc. Having paraded the streets, the new freemen and 
the other equestrians enter the castle, where they are liberally 
regaled, and drink the health of the lord and lady of the manor. 
The newly created burgesses then proceed in a body to their 
respective houses and around the holly-tree drink a friendly 
glass with one another. After this they proceed to the market- 
place, where they close the ceremony over an enlivening bowl 
of punch." (Antiquarian Bepertory, 1809, vol. iv. p. 387 ; History 
of Alnwick^ 1822, pp. 304-309 ; Gentleman's Magazine, 1756, vol. 
xxvi. p. 73.) The Lonsdale Magazine for 1828 (vol. iii. p. 312) 
records that the custom was kept up in that year. 

* It appears from a traditionary account that at one time they were met 
by women dressed up with ribbons, bells, and garlands of gum-flowers, who 
welcomed them with dancing and singing. 



446 CURIOSITIES OF 

Friday. Next to Sunday, Friday has the most peculiar his- 
tory- among the days of the week. It was the festival daj^ of 
the goddess Freya, the Northern Yenus. The ill luck which 
by popular superstition is still ascribed to projects or journeys 
undertaken on Friday is traceable to the fact that it was origi- 
nally regarded as sacred to the goddess, whose honor was held 
to be disregarded by all who, instead of participating in her fes- 
tive worship, followed their own pursuits. On such Freya was 
supposed to bring ill fortune. The superstition remained after 
the explanation had been forgotten. ISIo doubt the fact that 
Friday is associated with the passion of Christ and that it is a 
day of abstinence in the Catholic Church had much to do with 
keeping up the feeling. There is a widely prevalent story told 
in different ways in different places about the ship that was 
built on Friday by a sea-captain to put an end to the super- 
stition, and which foundered on its first voyage. The most 
circumstantial is still heard from the lips of seafaring men 
in Wilmington, Delaware. Mrs. Eebecca Harding Davis thus 
relates it : 

" Isaac Harvey laid the keel of the brig on a Friday ; that 
night his wife had an ill dream, and strongly urged him to tear 
it up and begin the ship anew on Saturday (seventh day, in the 
Quaker vernacular). But Isaac was a hard-headed, matter-of- 
fact man, and placed no faith in a woman's dreams. It is these 
little things in life that breed strife in a family, and strife was 
bred in this; but altercation only made Isaac more fixed in his 
own way, so that, out of pure perversity, he not only fitted the 
brig out on Friday, but he named her the Friday, and sent 
her out under command of a good captain on Friday. On that 
Friday week, in the midst of a gale that piped and roared and 
thundered as if the Dutchman and his demon crew were loose, 
a homeward-bound vessel, running before the gale, saw the hull 
of a brig pitching heavily in the trough of the sea, while her 
crew ran about the deck, cutting loose the wreck of the masts 
that dragged and bumped alongside. As the homeward-bound 
vessel darted past down the slippery side of a great wave, a wail 
went up from the doomed brig, and under her counter they saw, 
painted in white letters, 

FKIDAY 

of 

WILMINGTON. 

The oncoming wave rose like a wall between the vessels, and 
when they lifted on the crest of the next, nothing was to be 
seen but a few floating timbers. When Mrs. Harvey heard the 
news she folded her hands and remarked, ' 1 told thee so, Isaac. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 447 

This is all thy sixth-day doings. Now thee sees the consequence, 
^hee never had the vessel insured.' " 

Not two per cent, of the marriages in the midland district of 
England are celebrated on Friday. On the other hand, in Scot- 
land nine-tenths of the marriages occur on that day. In Scan- 
dinavia Thursday was the day of ill omen for a wedding. Was 
this because the day was named after Thor, the god of thunder? 
In India a rainy day is considered unlucky for a wedding. St. 
Eloy in a sermon warned his flock from keeping Thursday as a 
holy-day, and Swift in a letter to Sheridan rhymes Thursday 
with "cursed day." The Esthonians consider it unlucky, and in 
Devonshire it has but one lucky hour. According to the Eegis- 
trar-General of Scotland, there are more marriages in that land 
celebrated on the last day of the year than in all the rest of the 
year put together. Yet when the last day of the year happens 
to be Saturday, no one gets married on it. (Antiquary, vol. i. 
p. 209.) 

Tuesday is the unlucky day in Spain and in Mexico. The 
popular sentiment concerning it is embodied in the Ibllowing 
jingle : 

En Martes ni te cases, ni te embarques, 
Ni de tu casa te apartes. 

Which, rendered literally, means, •' On Tuesday neither be thou 
married, nor go on a voyage, nor leave thy house." Belief in 
the ill luck of Tuesday is a Spanish superstition, reference to 
which is found in a letter written by Fray Juan de Zumarraga 
some years before he left Spain for Mexico. Possibly it is a 
native Mexican superstition also ; though a sufficient reason 
for its prompt acceptance by the Mexicans, perhaps, is to be 
found in the fact that on a Tuesday (August 13, 1521) was com- 
pleted the conquest of the capital city of Tenochtitlan, or 
Mexico. 

From ancient Egypt the evil or unlucky days received the 
name of Egyptian l3ays. The Eomans called them Dies Mali. 
A Saxon MS. says, " Three days there are in the year, which we 
call Egyptian Days, that is, in our language, dangerous days, on 
any occasion whatever, to the blood of man or beast. In the 
month which we call April, the last Monday ; and there is the 
second, at the coming [i.e., before the 15th] of the month we call 
August ; then is the third, which is the first Monday of the going 
out [i.e., after the 15th] of the month of December. He who on 
these three days reduces blood, be it of man, be it of beast, this 
we have heard say, that speedily on the first or seventh day his 
life he will end. Or if his life be longer so that he come not to 
the seventh day, or if he drink some time in these three days, 



448 CURIOSITIES OF 

he will end his life; and he that tastes of goose-flesh, within forty 
days space his life he will end." 

Frideswide, St., patroness of the city and university of 
Oxford. Her festival on October 19 was formerly celebrated 
here with much pomp. Daughter of Sidan, Prince of Oxford 
and the surrounding territory, she became prioress of the nun- 
nery which her pious father founded in 750. Algar, King of 
Mercia, sought to win her from her vows, but she fled at his 
approach, and, though hard pressed, — once even having to take 
refuge in a pigsty, where she was regarded by the rightful 
inhabitants with mingled awe and respect, — she succeeded in 
eluding him. Then Algar laid siege to Oxford, but he was struck 
by blindness, which was cured only by his repentance and the 
prayers of the saint. Later she withdrew to an oratory she had 
built for herself at Thornbury near Oxford. The fountain she 
here made use of is said to have been obtained by her prayers. 
She died about 740, and was buried in the church of her priory, 
which became known as St. Frideswide. This monastery, trans- 
formed into a college by Cardinal Wolsey, is now Christ Church, 
Oxford. Her church, rebuilt in the twelfth century, is now 
Oxford Cathedral. 

The relics of the saint had meanwhile been subjected, to many 
translations within the church, but in 1480 the last shrine for its 
reception was built. This shrine was watched over by the monks 
of Christ Church. Until the Eeformation it was the resort of 
numerous pilgrims. On Ascension Day it was customary for the 
chancellor, masters, and scholars of the university, with the paro- 
chial clergy, to visit this shrine, with the cross borne before them. 
On one occasion, while this procession was passing through the 
streets, a Jew snatched the cross from its bearer and trampled 
it under his feet. In punishment for this afl'ront to the crucified 
Saviour, King Henry III. commanded all the Jews in the city 
to be imprisoned, and obliged them to erect at their own cost a 
stately marble cross on the spot where the outrage was com- 
mitted ; on one side was to be the figure of Christ, on the other 
a representation of his Blessed Mother. They were also to pre- 
sent another cross of silver gilt to the proctors for use in future 
processions. 

The shrine of St. Frideswide still remains one of the ornaments 
of the church, but untenanted, as the relics were removed there- 
from when Henry VIII.'s commissioners visited the city. They 
were preserved, however, and made " accessible to the faithful." 
When Elizabeth came to the throne, they were interred below 
the floor. The queen further ordered that the body of Catherine 
Cathie, a disveiled nun who had married a renegade priest, Peter 



\ 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 449 

Martyr, Divinity professor at Christ Church, should be placed 
within St. Frideswide's grave. "The married nun and the virgin 
saint were buried together, and the dust of the two still remains 
inextricably blended." (Froude: History of England.) Baring- 
Gould adds that an inscription was placed over the double 
tomb, " Hie requiescit religio cum superstitione," which is now 
happily defaced. 

St. Frideswide, under the name of Sainte-Frewisse, is also 
venerated at Borny in Artois, whither, according to Flemish 
tradition, she fled from the pursuit of Algar. A chapel bearing 
her name is supposed to occupy the site of her cell (relics of the 
saint are here exhibited), and a miraculous fountain near at hand 
is believed to have been elicited by her prayers. 

Frindsbury Procession. A singular custom which was ob- 
served until about the middle of the nineteenth century by the 
boys of Frindsbury, in the town of Stroud, England, on May-Day. 
They went for a skirmish on Eochester Bridge. This combat de- 
rived its origin from a beating received by the monks of Eochester 
in the reign of Edward I. On the occasion of a long drought 
they set out in procession for Frindsbury to pray for rain. As 
the day was windy, they asked the master of Stroud Hospital 
to let them pass through the orchard. He gave his consent 
without consulting the brethren. The latter were angry at this, 
and hired a rabble with clubs to give the intruding monks a 
beating, which they did. The monks took a pious revenge by 
obliging the men of Frindsbury to come yearly on Whit Monday 
with much humility in a procession, bearing their clubs, to 
Eochester as penance for their sins. 

Frost or Vintage Saints. (Fr. Saints gelifs, Saints vendan- 
geurs.) A name popularly applied in France to three saints, — 
i.e., St. Mammertus, St. Pancras, and St. Servatus, — whose festi- 
vals, the 11th, 12th, and 13th of May respectively, are noted in 
the husbandman's calendar as days on which the thermometer 
frequently undergoes a marked and sudden fall. This phenom- 
enon is thought by scientists to be due to strong currents from 
the north caused by the breaking up of the polar ice. The more 
knowing populace, however, from very early times have ascribed 
it to the malice of one or other of the saints. 

In the ecclesiastical annals of Oahors and Ehodez it is re- 
corded that the angry peasants would frequently flog the images 
and deface the pictures of the frost saints. Eabelais satirically 
asserts that in order to put an end to these scandals a bishop of 
Auxerre proposed to transfer the festivals of the frost saints to 
the dog-days and make August change places with May. 

29 



450 CURIOSITIES OF 

In Germany the same superstition holds, and the frost saints 
are known as " the three severe lords," — die drei gestrenge Herren. 
It is believed by gardeners that nothing is safe from frost until 
these days are over. 

Furry Festival. A curious survival from immemorial an- 
tiquit}^ which is celebrated at Helston, in Cornwall, Wales, on 
May 8, the day set apart by the Catholic Church as the festival 
of the Apparition of St. Michael. (See Michael, St.) That 
archangel is the patron of the town. According to popular 
legend, the town itself owes its name to a huge block of granite 
which up to the year 1783 lay in the yard of the Angel Inn and 
was then broken up and used as part of the building material of 
the assembly-room. This stone the country-folk believe originally 
lay at the mouth of hell, whence it was one day carried away 
by the devil, who intended to put it to some diabolical use. But 
as his Satanic majesty was crossing the county of Cornwall he 
was encountered by St. Michael. A fight ensued, in which the 
devil, being defeated, took to his heels or wings and dropped the 
hell-stone in his flight. In commemoration of this event the 
inhabitants instituted the festival of Furry Day, which, whatever 
its origin, has undoubtedly from time immemorial been held on 
the 8th of May. So imperative is the holiday that any person 
detected at work on Furry Day is instantly seized and carried 
astride upon a pole to the river, into which, if he does not buy 
his release at a pretty liberal price, he is forthwith flung. 

The day is ushered in very early in the morning by the music 
of drums, kettles, and violins, which serve as an accompaniment 
to the following delightful song: 

Kobin Hood and Little John, 

They both are gone to the fair, O, 
And we will to the merry greenwood, 

To see what they do there, O, 

And for to chase, O, 

To chase the buck and doe, 

With Hal-an-tow, 

Jolly rumble, O. 

And we were up as soon as day, O, 

And for to fetch the summer home, 
The summer and the May, O ; 

Por the summer is a-come, O, 

And winter is a-go, O. 

Where are those Spaniards 

That make so great a boast, O ? 
They shall eat the gray goose feather, 

And we will eat the roast, O. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 451 

In every land, O, 
The land that ore we go, 
"With Hal-an-tow, etc.. 
And we were up, etc. 

As for St. G-eorge, O, 

St. George he was a knight, O, 
Of all the kings in Christendom, 

King George is the right, O. 

In every land, O, 

The land that ere we go 

With Hal-an-tow, etc. 

God bless Aunt Mary Moses, 

With all her power and might, O ; 
And send us peace in merry England, 

Both day and night, O. 

At nine o'clock the revellers appear before the grammar- 
school and demand a holiday for the school-boys, after which 
they collect money from house to house. They then fade into the 
country (fade being an old English word for "go"), and about 
the middle of the day return with flowers and oak branches in 
their hats and caps, and spend the rest of the day until dusk in 
dancing through the streets to the sound of the fiddle, playing 
the " Furry tune," and thread the houses as they choose, — claim- 
ing a right to go through any person's house, in at one door and 
out of the other. 

This goes on through countless houses, and through whole 
streets. Whenever the head of the procession emerges it is re- 
ceived with roars of delight ; whenever the tail of the procession 
disappears it is followed by numerous adherents, who join on, 
and begin dancing too. 

It was formerl}^ the custom for the resident gentry to follow 
suit in the afternoon, beginning by visiting some farm-house in 
the neighborhood, whence, after regaling themselves with sylla- 
bubs, they returned, after the fashion of the vulgar, to the town, 
dancing as briskly the fade dance, and entering the houses as 
unceremoniously. In later times a select party only made their 
progress through the streets very late in the evening, and, hav- 
ing quickly vanished from the scene, reappeared in the ball-room 
of the Angel Inn, where they danced until supper, and then re- 
turned home. At present, however, Furry Day is observed only 
among the lower classes, and even among them has lost much of 
its ancient spirit. 

The meaning and derivation of the word Furry are not easy 
to determine. Polwhele in his " History of Cornwall" (1826, 



452 



CURIOSITIES OF 



vol. ii. p. 41) suggested its origin in /er, a " fair," and buttressed 
this opinion with the second line of the "furry" song, — 

They both are gone to the fair, O. 



Fusi-Jama. The sacred mountain of Japan. The glory of 
the regular, pure white cone, rising from the plain, and towering 
king-like over the petty hills scattered to the right and left, has 
been sung by Japanese poets, and limned by Japanese artists, 
from time immemorial. Well-omened is the house so situated as 
to command a view of the mountain ; fortunate the man who can 




First Sight of Fusi-Jama. 
(From a Japanese sketch.) 

show, among his household treasures, the duly signed certificate 
of his having made its arduous ascent. Scarcely a screen or a 
tray or a lacquered bowl exists on which the well-known shape 
of the mountain is not portrayed. Ignorant rustics cannot be 
convinced that there are spots in the world whence the cone 
cannot be descried. To the citizen of Yedo it is a barometer, 
a protective genius, a sight to amaze the foreign visitor; to 
the peasant it is a something so sublime and grand as not to be 
spoken of without reverence. 

To make a pilgrimage hither is the desire of all devout Japan- 
ese and the accomplishment of most. The pilgrims find shelter 
for the night in a number of rude stone huts. Immediately 
before sunrise they all kneel among the rough cinder-heaps and 
watch for the moment when the sun-goddess appears upon the 
far-distant horizon ; prayers and litanies are chanted, and then 
the circuit of the crater is begun. This is a toilsome march of 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



453 



three miles, over ashes,, crags, and lava of many different colors ; 
and it is done sunwise, with the right hand to the centre. 

Some of the pilgrims make a second circuit lower down the 




Pilgrims climbing Fusi-Jama. 
(From a Japanese sketch.) 



mountain, where the line of vegetation begins. This is a much 
longer march than the other, the circumference being about 
twelve miles, and the path is over masses of volcanic ash and 
heaps of lava. 



Gayant, Fete de. A festival celebrated annually at Douai, 
France, from the 8th to the 11th of July. Its distinguishing 
feature is the procession, on two out of the four days, of Sire de 
Gayant and his family through the gayly decorated streets of 
the town. Gayant is a figure twenty-five feet high made of 
wicker-work. Eesplendently clad in mediaeval armor, with nod- 
ding plumes in his helmet and a mighty mace in his hand, he is 
down to his hips of the most masculine fibre. But the exigencies 
of processional duties require that he must have no legs, and 
that his lower half should be covered by a petticoat descending 
from his thigh-pieces and his apron of chain mail to the ground, 
so as to conceal the nine men who move the figure from within. 



454 



CURIOSITIES OF 



He heads the procession. Around him madly prance mum- 
mers mounted on hobby-horses, who make all the foolish noise 
they can. Behind him comes his goodly consort Marie Cagenon, 
another wicker toy, twenty-two feet high, in brocaded gown, 
with stomacher and farthingale, and a huge fan held before her 
face. Their three children follow, — Jacquot, in troubadour cos- 
tume. Mile. Fillon, in plain Eenaissance gown, and the baby of 
the family, Mile. Therese, otherwise known as Little Binbin, a 
mere mite of eight feet, wearing a round cap and a white pina- 
fore, and running hither and thither in mad childish glee. She 
is the special favorite of the children of Douai, who clamor to 
be held up in their fathers' arms to kiss her cheeks. The inter- 
esting family is accompanied by allegorical or saintly personages 
who vary in identity from year to year. St. Michael slaying 
the dragon, the seven deadly sins, the cardinal virtues, demons, 
buffoons, and fantastic animals may be among them. During 
the intervals of the processions rural fun- making of all sorts goes 
on. Greased poles hung with fluttering prizes tempt the unwary, 
gayly decorated boats run races in the Scarpe, archers contend 

for prizes in the Place St.- 
Ame, concerts break out in 
the most unexpected places. 
The Chant de Gayant is sung, 
flayed, and danced. This song 
was composed in 1775 by a 
certain Lajoye, a dancing-mas- 
ter in a grenadier regiment 
stationed at Douai, and is 
always wildly applauded. 

The origin of the Fete de 
Gayant has been a puzzle 
to many antiquarians. The 
Church claims him as identical 
with St. Maurand, the patron 
of Douai. As for madame 
and the children (questionable 
encumbrances upon celibate 
saintship), it insists that the 
Gayant of the procession was 
a single man until 1665, when 
the good people of Douai ab- 
ruptly ended his bachelorhood, 
the three children being born triplets of varying ages in 1715. 
Etymologists have made sad havoc with his name, tracing it to 
the Greek y^, " the earth," and heaven knows what other sources. 
But the common-sense view accepts Gayant simply as the Span- 




Gayant and his Family. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 455 

ish gigante, "a giant," that and many other words being preserved 
in the local patois of Flanders as a reminiscence of the Spanish 
dominion. 

The facts of the case as seen by common sense are some- 
what as follows. In the year 1479 a feast and an accompany- 
ing procession were instituted in the city as a memorial of 
the repulse of Louis XI., who had laid siege to Douai in that 
year. In this pageant St. Maurand's image was probably a 
prominent feature. When Charles Y. came into control of 
Flanders as part of his imperial heritage, he sought to graft 
Spanish innovations upon ancient Flemish customs. Hence he 
introduced some features of the Spanish pageant known as the 
Procession of the Giants (q. v.) into the yearly festival with 
which the city celebrated its victory over Louis XL By the 
time the Spaniards were finally driven from the soil, the Sire de 
Gayant, owing to his conspicuous size, had entirely superseded 
the saint who had been the original patron of the festival, and, 
his peninsular paternity having been forgotten, he retained his 
place in popular favor. 

As the procession became more and more secularized the 
Church grew more and more shocked at the license that accom- 
panied it, and in 1770 the Bishop of Arras obtained from Louis 
XY. a decree of suppression. The clamorous discontent of the 
populace resulted in the rescinding of the decree nine years later. 
The opposition of the godly was at an end. But a new opposition 
of the ungodly began in 1792 with the triumph of the Eevolution, 
Gayant and his family were dethroned for the Goddess of Eeason 
and Liberty. Neither heaven nor hell, however, could prevail 
against the gallant Sire de Gayant. In 1801 the whole family 
were resurrected, although they had to pay a necessary tribute 
to contemporary modes of thought and dress by donning the 
costume of the Eepublic. Even in this guise the peasantry who 
flocked from all sides to applaud the reappearance of their grand- 
father, as they had come to call him, went into wild raptures of 
recognition. It was a sort of family fete. Then in J 821 an 
awful thing happened. Grandfather fell to pieces ! His family 
were all more or less damaged. A complete restoration was 
decided upon. The modern puppets are the result of this restora- 
tion, which was tenderly and reverently planned and carried out 
by M. Yallet, professor of drawing in the village school. 

Genevieve, St., patroness of Paris. Her festival on January 
3, the anniversary of her death, was iormerly celebrated with 
great pomp at the church of St. Genevieve in Paris. But since 
that church was secularized under the present republic and re- 
named the Pantheon, the celebration of the feast has been trans- 



456 CURIOSITIES OF 

ferred to St. Etienne du Mont. Beginning on January 3, it closes 
with the end of the octave on the 11th. 

St. Genevieve was a shepherdess, born at Nanterre, now almost 
a suburb of Paris, about 422. Christianity was at that time 
accepted by only a small proportion of the Franks. As the 
legend runs, she was very pious from her infancy, and St. Ger- 
main, passing through the then tiny village, consecrated her to 
religious work. From that time she worked miracles. Her 
mother, in a fit of temper boxing her ears, became blind, and 
Genevieve, by her prayers and by bathing the closed eyes with 
the water of the well in front of the house, restored the lost 
sight. The well became sacred, and during a famine she is said 
to have made nourishing soup of its waters for the starving 
peasants. The well still flows in front of the chapel at Nanterre 
that marks the site of Genevieve's home, and pilgrims still flock 
to it. On the death of her parents the maiden went to Paris, 
and before she was twenty she had become famous through her 
power of effecting cures by the use of herbs. Soon the word 
"sorceress" began to be whispered around. There is little doubt 
what would have been her fate if St. Germain had not come 
forward as her protector. 

Later, when Attila, King of the Huns, threatened Paris, Gene- 
vieve exhorted the people not to fly, prophesying that Heaven 
would protect them. And when, in truth, the enemy withdrew 
without striking a blow, the people believed that the miracle had 
been wrought by her supplications. 

As soon as order was restored, Genevieve established the first 
convent in France, on the spot now occupied by the Lycee Henri 
lY. In 456, when Childeric besieged Paris, and famine came on, 
Genevieve did her utmost to alleviate the suffering, and fitted 
out a boat in which she procured provision from Troyes. After 
Paris was taken she became the friend and adviser of the con- 
queror, gaining many concessions for the vanquished. She con- 
verted Clovis, the son and successor of Childeric, and instigated 
him to build the first Christian church in France, on the site now 
occupied by St. Etienne du Mont, which succeeded it in the six- 
teenth century. In this church Clovis himself, St. Clotilde, his 
wife, and Genevieve were subsequently buried. Genevieve's 
death is placed in the year 511. In 845, on the occasion of a 
Norman invasion, her relics were removed to Athis, then succes- 
sively to Draveil, where a tooth is still preserved, and to Marizy, 
and finally in 855 were returned to Paris. When the church of 
St. Genevieve was built in that city the relics were enshrined 
there in a tomb ornamented with gold. There they remained, an 
object of universal veneration, until the outbreak of the Eevolu^ 
tion, when the tomb was broken open, the gold was carried to 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 457 

the mints, and the relics were publicly burned. Nevertheless it 
is claimed that some of the bones were saved, and placed in the 
church of St. Etienne du Mont. 

During the centuries prior to the Eevolution many miracles 
were reported to have been wrought by the relics of the saint 
and through her intercession. Especially famous is the miracle 
"des Ardens," or of the burning fever. In 1129, during the 
reign of Louis YI., a pestilential fever swept off many thousands 
in Paris. To stem the plague the relics of St. Genevieve were 
carried in solemn procession to Notre-Dame. Many of the sick, 
it is said, were cured by touching the shrine, and the plague dis- 
appeared in a few days. An annual festival in commemoration 
of this miracle was ordered by Pope Innocent II. to take place 
on the 26th of l!^ovember. 

During the Middle Ages, in short, if any misfortune threat- 
ened France, — plague, famine, inundation, or invasion, — the 
people straightway had recourse to St. Genevieve. Eighty 
times in all her bones were carried through the streets in solemn 
procession, with priests burning incense in their honor, and lay- 
men scattering flowers before them and prostrating themselves 
with wild prayers for help as the cortege passed. 

In those weary, hopeless days in 1871, when in Paris famine 
was doing a more deadly work even than the Prussians, men 
and women who had never before uttered a prayer joined eagerly 
in the common supplication to the patron saint : 

" St. Genevieve, thou who by thy praj^ers didst save our city 
from the hordes of Attila, save us now from the hordes of his 
descendants." 

And when the news came that General Faidherbe had won a 
battle on the fete of St. Genevieve, the man who had dared to 
say that it was not by the help of the saint would have stood a 
fair chance of being lynched, in some parts of Paris. When 
happier days came, however, St. Genevieve was as usual quietly 
thrust into the background, there to remain until some fresh 
misfortune to the land brings her again to the fore. 

But to the Catholic minority in Paris St. Genevieve's Day with 
its octave is still a great occasion, as is evidenced in the following 
from the New York Tribune of January 24, 1897 : 

"Paris, January 11. — There is closing to-day the interesting 
ceremony that takes place annually in the Paris church of St. 
Etienne du Mont. For these nine days of the fete the usually 
deserted square in front of the church is filled with booths, 
where chaplets, images, and mementos of all kinds are sold, 
with crowds of the curious or reverent hurrying to and from the 
church, with the sick and the crippled who have come here with 
the same spirit with which they go to Lourdes, with priests and 



458 CURIOSITIES OF 

nuns and the pious not only of Paris but of the surrounding 
villages, for cart-loads of pilgrims arrive every morning from the 
country. 

" The scene outside of the church has more of a fete-day air 
than a religious aspect, and there is a strong spirit of ' marchan- 
dering.' The gamins of the street run about demanding ' sous,' 
for which the bundles of paper prayers they carry present an 
excuse. The pilgrims, who are laden with rosaries, sacred images, 
and medals confided to their care by less fortunate neighbors, — 
or often with a robe or bundle of bandages for the sick that are 
to be blessed at the shrine, — eat their frugal luncheons on the 
curb-stones, and are the best, if most careful, patrons of the 
booths. They buy little silver rings and charms, souvenirs of 
the fete, for daughter or niece at home, and these become a part 
of the bundle that rests for one moment on the relics of the saint 
exposed for this week in the interior of the church. 

" The interior of the church is not large, but it is majestic and 
harmonious, and is curiously divided by a gallery reached by 
winding stone stairways. On the right is the chapel, with its 
altar and gilt Gothic shrine of the saint, about and over which 
innumerable candles are burning. On this occasion one side of 
the tomb is opened, and a priest stands there to receive what- 
ever offerings may be handed him, to place them for a moment 
On the relics before handing them back, and to give a blessing 
if asked for while the recipient puts a two-sou piece in the 
plate before him. Most of the crowd, kept severely in line by 
the officials, hand the priest large bundles, of which the inte- 
rior is only to be conjectured, and have also candles, which, 
passing behind the tomb, they either light themselves and place 
on one of the tiny spikes provided, or hand to a small boy if the 
candle is sufficiently large to be placed in the front of the tomb. 
Familiarity with his office may have destroyed the small boy's 
sense of the dignity befitting it, for at times, when the ranks 
grow thin, he may be seen rearranging the tapers to suit his 
own ideas or to blow out one to hold it as fur as possible from a 
lighte'd one and yet have it catch fire. 

" The church during these nine days is draped with pale blue 
and gold banners, and services commence early in the morning 
and continue until late in the evening ; indeed, the chairs and 
prie-dieus are no sooner emptied of one congregation than they 
are filled by another." 

George, St., patron of England, also of Germany and Yenice 
and of soldiers and armorers. His festival is celebrated on April 
23, the supposed anniversary of his martyrdom. 

The legends about this saint are numerous and inconsistent, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 459 

but the generally accepted story is as follows. He was born in 
Cappadocia in the third century. Setting out in search of adven- 
tures, he reached a city (sometimes given as Selene in Libya, 
sometimes as Berytus in Syria), to find it greatly annoyed by a 
terrible dragon, which, unless it had a virgin to devour every 
day, emitted a pestiferous and death-dealing stench. The lot 
had fallen to the king's daughter (Cleodolinda and Sabra are 
her most usual names) to be made a meal of, and St. George 
met her on the way to her doom. Learning the story, he at once 
gave battle to the dragon, and with the aid of his good sword 
Ascalon he soon pinned it to the ground. Then he bound the 
monster with the girdle of the princess, and in this way it was 
led into the town. Seeing that many would have fled at the 
sight, St. George called out to them not to be afraid, but to 
trust in the Lord who had aided him, and be baptized in the 
faith, and the animal would be slain before their eyes. And as 
many as twenty thousand were baptized. Then the saint drew 
his sword and slew the dragon. Some of the legends make him 
marry the princess. All agree, however, that he was martyred 
under the Emperor Dacian. He was first submitted to various 
tortures, but through miraculous intervention they all proved 
incapable of hurting him. He was then taken to assist at the 
heathen sacrifices in the temple, and crowds came to witness 
his humiliation, but a flash of lightning from heaven destroyed 
the temple, and with it many of his enemies. Finally, on April 
23, A.D. 303, he was beheaded. The worship of St. George began 
in the East, where he was known as the Great Martyr. By the 
Western Church he was comparatively ignored until the time of 
Godfrey de Bouillon, who found his intercession to be of great 
value in military matters. When Eiehard I. departed for the 
Crusades, he placed his country under the protection of this 
saint, who has ever since been the patron of England. Pop- 
ular English legend, however, was not satisfied with so prosaic 
an origin of the patronship, and it therefore represents that 
when Eobert, Duke of Normandy (son of William the Con- 
queror), was besieging Antioch, and the Saracens had come 
to the town's relief, St. George suddenly made his appear- 
ance with a numerous army, coming down the hills all in 
white with a red cross on his banner, and put the infidels to 
flight. 

In the church of the convent of Zoographos on Mount Athos, 
in Greece, is a miraculous picture of St. George, which conveyed 
itself from Palestine without human aid, like the sacred house 
of Loretto. The monks declare it to have been painted by the 
divine will, and not by the hands of men, whence the monastery 
was dedicated to the Zoographos, or Painter. There is a small 



460 CURIOSITIES OF 

hole near the eyes of the picture which is thus explained. Once 
on a time a free-thinking bishop from Constantinople, doubt- 
ing the divine origin of the picture, derisively thrust his finger 
through it, and was unable to withdraw it, so that at length he 
was forced to cut it off. 

The remains of the saint are said to rest in a church at 
Lydda, still extant, which was built over them by the Emperor 
Justinian. 

Gibbon has sought, but not very successfully, to identify St. 
George with an infamous army contractor, named George of 
Cappadocia, who became a champion of the Arians and died in 
361. 

Edward III. dedicated St. George's Chapel, Windsor, to him 
in 1348, and made him patron of the new order of the Garter. 
In the first Prayer Book of Edward YI. St. George's Day was 
a red-letter day, and in many parts of Christendom it is still a 
high day. In England the date has additional interest from the 
fact that it was at once the birth- and the death-day of Shake- 
speare, and the death-day of Wordsworth. Furthermore, the 
death of Cervantes was exactly coincident with that of Shake- 
speare, April 23, 1616. 

As a battle-cry we have frequent evidence of the use of St. 
George's name in Shakespeare and other dramatists. Richard 
III. exclaims, — 

Our ancient word of courage, fair St. George, 
Inspires us with the spleen of fiery dragons I 

And Richmond cries, — 

Sound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully, 
God and St. George ! Kichmond and victory I 

In Marlowe's "Edward II." twice occurs the cry, — 

St. George for England and the right I 

Similar examples could be indefinitely accumulated. It is suf- 
ficient to add that in many old documents even prior to the reign 
of Henry YII. appear royal ordinances commending the use of 
St. George's cross and St. George's battle-cry to all English 
soldiers serving abroad. 

The people learned to love the name which had so often nerved 
the arms of their soldiers to victory, and the feast of St. George 
became one of the greatest anniversaries of the year in England. 
Bedford in " Henry YI." says, — 

Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make, 
To keep our great St. George's Feast withal. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 461 

Henry YII. was especially devoted to St. George. History 
relates how Elizabeth of York, his queen, attended the pageant 
of St. George on Garter Day clad in crimson velvet, and mounted 
on a palfrey of which the housings were white, ornamented 
with red roses. 

In the reign of Edward YI. the holding of the chapter of the 
Garter was transferred from St. George's Day to Whitsunda}'. 
In the first year of the reign of Queen Mary, however, the en- 
actment was reversed, and since that date (1553) the chapter 
has been annually held on the 23d of April, the original feast- 
day, in commemoration of the martyrdom of George the soldier 
saint. 

The king's spurs became the fee of the choristers at Windsor 
on installations and feasts on St. George's Day. In the " Privy 
Purse Expenses of Henry YII." is an entry under the year 
1495 : 

" Oct. 1. At Windesor. To the children for the spoures." 

A similar disbursement occurs thrice in the Privy Purse Ex- 
penses of Henry YIII. in 1530. (Med. jEvi Kalend., vol. i. p. 
214.) 

Strype, in his " Ecclesiastical Memorials" (1822, vol. iii. pt. ii. 
p. 3),' says, "April 23rd [1557], being St. George's Day, the 
King's grace went a procession at Whitehall, through the hall, 
and round about the court hard by the gate, certain of the 
Knights of the Garter accompanying him, viz., the Lord Moun- 
tagu, the Lord Admiral St. Anthony St. Leger, the Lord Cob- 
ham, the Lord Dacre, Sir Thomas Cheyne, the Lord Paget, the 
Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Arundel, the Lord Treasurer, 
and Secretary Petre, in a robe of crimson velvet, with the garter 
embroidered on his shoulder (as Chancellor of the Garter). One 
bare a rod of black, and a doctor the book of records. Then 
went all the heralds, and then the Lord Talbot bare the sword, 
and after him the sergeant-at-arms. And then came the king, 
the Queen's grace looking out of a window beside the court on 
the garden side. And the bishop of Winchester did execute the 
mass, wearing his mitre. The same afternoon were chosen three 
Knights of the Garter, viz., the Lord Fitz- Water, the deputy of 
Ireland ; Lord Grey of Wilton, deputy of Guynes ; and Sir 
Robert Eochester, comptroller of the Queen's house. After, the 
duke of Muscovia (as that ambassador was usually termed) came 
through the hall and the guard stood on a row, in their rich 
coats, with halberts ; and so passed up to the Queen's chamber, 
with divers aldermen and merchants. And after came down 
again to the chapel to evensong, to see the ceremonies. And 
immediately came the king (the Lord Strange bearing the sword), 
and the Knights of the Garter, to evensong, which done, they 



462 CURIOSITIES OF 

went ?.ll up to the chamber of presence. After came the ambas- 
sador, and took his barge to London." 

At Leicester a great annual pageant called the " Eiding of the 
George" was held. The town observed strict holiday. All busi- 
ness was suspended, and the evening closed on the sports of the 
day with feasting and revelry. 

In Dublin, probably as a gentle reminder of the supremac}^ of 
England, the pageant of St. George was ordered to be religiously 
observed, with the result of making the day annually notable 
for disturbances and riots that filled the jails with misdemeanants 
and the city with broken heads. 

So late as the beginning of the nineteenth centurj- it was cus- 
tomary for gentlemen to wear blue coats with dragon buttons 
on this festival. George lY. changed the celebration of his birth- 
day from August 12 to St. George's Day, and the festival was 
marked in London by the annual procession of mail-coaches from 
Lombard Street to Millbank and back, the drivers and guards 
brilliant in new uniforms, decked with huge bouquets and 
rosettes, and the vehicles gorgeous with new paint and burnished 
metal-work. In some villages of Kent the custom still survives 
for boys mounted on hobby-horses to go through a burlesque 
imitation of the old pageants of St. George and the Dragon. 
But, with these exceptions, the celebration of the anniversary of 
her patron saint has died out of England. 

In Derbyshire, however, his memory is still celebrated on 
Christmas Day by mummers or guisers who go from house to 
house and perform a play of St. George. They are dressed up 
in character and decorated with ribbons, tinsel, and other finery. 
On being admitted into the house their performance is com- 
menced by St. George : 

I am St. George, the noble champion bold, 

And with my glittering sword 

I've won three crowns of gold ; 

It's I who fought the fiery dragon, . 

And brought it to the slaughter ; 

And so I won fair Sabra, 

The king of Egypt's daughter. 

— Seven have I won, but married none, 

And bear my glory all alone, 

— "With my Sword in my hand, 

Who dare against me stand? 

I swear I'll cut him down 

With my victorious brand. 

A champion is soon found in the person of Slasher, who ac- 
cepts the challenge. St. George then replies in a neat speech, 
when they sing, shake hands, and fight with their wooden 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 463 

swords, and Slasher is slain. The King then enters, saying, "I 
am the King of England, the greatest man alive," and, after 
walking round the dead body, calls for " Sir Guy, one of the 
chiefest men in the world's wonder," who shows his wonderful 
courage and prowess in calling for a doctor. The doctor, on 
making his appearance, gives a long and quaint account of his 
birth, parentage, education, and travels, whilst perambulating 
around the I'allen Slasher, and ends his oration by saying, — 

Here, take a little out of my bottle, 
And put it down thy throttle. 

The dead man is thus cured, and, having received the advice 
of " Eise, Jack, and fight again," the play is ended. (Journal of 
the Archceological Association, 1852, vol. vii. p. 206.) 

There was a famous story once current at Eome that on St. 
George's Day a meditation used to be read out in the chapel of 
the English College there, divided into three parts or points, 
which ran as follows : 

" Point I. Let us consider that we know very little indeed 
about St. George." After due time had been given for a devout 
apprehension of this fundamental verity, there followed 

" Point II. Let us consider that the little we do know is very 
doubtful." To say nothing of the somewhat Hibernian method 
of conveying this supplementary information, it does seem hard 
that when there was so little to begin with, that little should 
not have been left alone. But, to clinch matters by excluding 
once for all any illusory anticipations of future enlightenment, 
the meditation closed with a third and last point : 

"Let us consider that it is quite certain we shall never know 
anything more about St. George." 

Under the Empire in Brazil the great festival of the year 
was St. George's Day. Eoyalty itself joined in the procession 
which was the feature of the occasion. " I once saw the late 
Emperor Dom Pedro II. traverse the main street of Eio de 
Janeiro on foot, with his noble head bared to the noonday sun, 
while just in front of him, fastened to the saddle (in which 
it was with difficulty held upright by two assistants), reeled 
helplessly to and fro, amid the unconcealed laughter of even 
its nominal worshippers themselves, the overgrown doll that 
represented Sao Jorge." (Harper's Young People, vol. xiv. p. 
167.) 

On the eve of St. George's Day the Servian women gather 
fresh leaves and flowers, which they throw into water set in 
motion by a windmill. Next day or on the feast itself they 
bathe in the water made fragrant by their springtide offerings. 



464 CURIOSITIES OF 

Giants, Procession of the. A bit of mummery ooce very 
popular in England, Spain, and Flanders. Into the latter land 
it was introduced by the Emperor Charles Y. from Spain, Yet 
Spain now boasts of only one survival, at Barcelona, while in 
that part of modern Belgium and France which once was Flan- 
ders almost every city has its communal giants, — colossal effigies 
which with their colossal consorts or attendants are carried about 
the streets on certain days. Each has its own name, its own 
legend, and its own festival. Antwerp has its Antigonus, 
Brussels its Brabo, Douai its Gayant, scores of other cities 
their own legendary monstrosities. These are fashioned in many 
ways and attired in still more various costumes, ranging from 
the Eoman, as at Antwerp, to the court dress of the last century, 
as at Brussels. Sometimes they are formed of osier, as at Douai, 
sometimes carved elaborately in wood, as at Antwerp. But all 
are so constructed that their lower robes hang around their feet 
so as to conceal the motive power, a dozen or so of stout fel- 
lows who now and then set down their burdens and emerge 
from the draperies to breathe. 

These men are experts in their line, for the movements of each 
giant should be in keeping with his character. An ogre giant, 
for example, must have a firm and defiant port, while the motions 
of a funny giant must be funny. 

On solemn occasions of national importance, such as the en- 
tries of sovereigns into cities, centenary celebrations, religious 
or secular, and the like, there is a reunion of giants. They are 
lent by the corporations of each town to swell the public shows. 
Such an occasion was the centenary of St. Eombaud at Mahnes, 
that of St. Macaire at Mona, and especially the World's Fair held 
in Brussels in 1890. On July 13 of that year more than two 
hundred colossal figures, representing nearly fifty cities, took 
part in a procession through the streets of Brussels. Even the 
town of Tarascon, in France, had been induced to send on its 
famous Tarasque, the dragon which St. Martha tamed into innocu- 
ousness and which furnishes the only approximation in Southern 
France to the Hispano-Flemish mummeries. (See Martha, St.) 

The procession of the giants in Barcelona occurs on Corpus 
Christi Day. A dozen enormously tall figures, representing scrip- 
tural and legendary men and women, — the Cid, Santiago, etc., — 
dressed in ancient costumes, promenade the streets. 

Around these giants dance dozens of bronze-faced men in 
female garb, and behind them march troops of children arrayed 
as angels. The child at the head of the angelic host is usually 
the son or the daughter of one of the richest merchants of the 
city; the dainty little body has wings made of tulle fastened 
upon card-board. Sometimes a bevy of children ranged around 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 465 

some sweet-faced woman represent angels grouped around the 
Madonna. Then follow long rows of pupils of religious socie- 
ties, the officials of the city, carrying wax tapers in their hands ; 
and finally, escorted by military bands and surrounded by priests 
and soldiers, the throne of one of the earliest of canonized Cata- 
lonian kings, — a golden chair richly chased, encrusted with jewels 
and heaped with flowers. 

If Antwerp has its Antigonus, London has its Gog and Magog, 
whose representations still stand in (they do not adorn) the old 
Guildhall of London. These are taken down to form part of 
the Lord Mayor's show. Formerly they figured with other 
giants and with monstrous dragons in the popular processions 
on Midsummer Eve, May-Day, and Shrovetide. The original 
images were made of wicker and pasteboard, so that they were 
easy to move ; but the London fire destroyed one set, the rats 
subsequently ate up the entrails of another, and the modern ones 
are wooden counterparts. The Puritans under Cromwell suc- 
ceeded in breaking up the processions of giants, and, though 
they had a temporary revival under Charles II., they finally 
languished and died. 

Among the relics of this ancient pastime is the Tailors' Giant 
still preserved at Salisbury, — the last of the old English peram- 
bulating giants. A pasteboard head crowned with tow hair is 
fitted on a framework of lath and hoops. A person could walk 
inside and carry the figure, being himself completely concealed 
by the drapery of colored chintz, bordered with red and purple 
and trimmed with yellow fringe. A gold-laced cocked hat was 
placed on the head, a pipe in the mouth, and a branch of arti- 
ficial laurel in the right hand. Thus accoutred, he won the 
facile applause of the spectators. 

No mere giant, however, could quite satisfy the mediaeval 
English love for the grotesque. Various monstrous devices were 
added, the most popular of all being the dragon. At Norwich 
this emblem survived in the mayoralty processions until so late 
as 1832. It was composed of canvas stretched over a framework 
of wood. The outside was painted of a sea-green color, with gilt 
scales and a crimson mane tied in fantastic knots about the tail. 
The body was five feet in length, but the neck and head could be 
elongated three feet and a half, and could also be turned in any 
direction at the will of the bearer. 

(^The feeling expressed in the scriptural verse " There were 
giants in those days" seems to have been universal with prim- 
itive men. Most nations of the world have traditions of ances- 
tors heroic in size as well as courage. Moslem and Eabbinical 
legends place the size of Adam and Eve at a hundred feet and 
more. 

30 



466 CURIOSITIES OF 

The Hindoos have a tradition of a giant race who bestrode 
elephants as we do horses. The Greek heroes at the siege of Troy- 
threw stones at their enemies which the strongest of their descend- 
ants could not move. Homer and Yirgil speak of the men of 
their own day as mere dwarfs in comparison with those elder 
heroes of whom they sang. 

When Queen Elizabeth visited Kenilworth Castle, in 1575, 
there were six gigantic figures, eight feet in height, standing 
guard over the castle gate. " By this dumb show," explains a 
contemporary writer, " it was meant that in the days of King 
Arthur men were of that stature, so that the Castle of Kenil- 
worth should still seem to be kept by King Arthur's heirs and 
their servants." 

Giles, St. (Lat. JEgidius ; Ital. Sant Egidio ; Fr. Saint Gilles ; 
Sp. San Gil)^ patron saint of Edinburgh, and of tinkers, cripples, 
and beggars. His festival is celebrated on September 1, the 
reputed anniversary of his death. St. Giles was born in Athens 
about 640, and came to Gaul, where he became abbot of a mon- 
astery in Aries. Some miracles which he performed, one of 
which was healing a sick man by throwing his cloak over 
him, gave him so much fame that, fearing for his humility, he 
withdrew to a solitary cave near Nismes, where he spent the 
remainder of his days in prayer and mortification. Legend says 
that he was fed by a hind, and that one day the hind was 
wounded by the King of France, or, according to other accounts, 
by the King of the Goths. The king in pursuing the hind came 
upon the saint in his retreat. He tried in vain to persuade the 
saint to return with him to his court. It is said that many 
miracles were worked at his cave, and the spot became so sacred 
that a monastery was built there which was called after the 
saint. The church still remains upon the spot, and is an extra- 
ordinary remnant of the Middle Ages. Queen Matilda dedicated 
a hospital which she founded outside of London to St. Giles, and 
the name now belongs to an extensive parish. The cathedral 
at Edinburgh is named after St. Giles. His attribute in art is a 
wounded hind. 

The relics of St. Giles are preserved at St. Saturninus in Tou- 
louse. On St. Giles's Day in Valencia it is the custom to bless a 
sprig of fennel. 

In Belgium the tinkers' apprentices parade through the 
streets of the cities under the leadership of two of their number, 
one wearing a kind of shako surmounted by a plume, while 
the other bears upon a little wooden platform with a long 
handle a statue of the saint, surrounded with flowers. From 
the platform depend spoons, pots, and other household utensils. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



46'7 



In this guise they stop at the houses of their various patrons and 
demand some small gratuity. 




Tinkers' Parade on St. Giles's Day. 
(From a Belgian lithograph.) 



Girdle (It. Cintola) of the Blessed Virgin. A famous relic 
in the cathedral at Prato, exhibited from the pulpit on all the 



468 duktosiTiES oP 

great festivals of the Yirgin. The legend runs that Doubting 
Thomas, true to his name, refused to believe in the Virgin's 
Assumption into heaven, as he had refused to believe in the 
Saviour's Ascension. But when the grave was opened he found 
it empty ; and the Virgin, pitying the weakness of his faith, let 
down her girdle to him from heaven to remove all further doubts 
from his mind. This girdle remained for centuries in the Holy 
Land. In the eleventh century one Michele dei Dogamari, a 
pilgrim from Prato, fell in love with the daughter of the priest 
who possessed the girdle. Marrying the lady, he received the 
relic as her dowrj'-, brought it with him to Prato, and on his 
death-bed delivered it to a priest on condition that it should be 
preserved forever in the cathedral of his native city. 

Glastonbury Thorn. A species of thorn (^Gratcegus prcecox) 
which flourishes in Glastonbury and other portions of England 
as well as Europe, but which is especially associated with its 
eponymic city through an ancient legend. The original thorn is 
asserted to have been the walking-staff of St. Joseph of Ari- 
mathea, who, after Christ's death, came over to England and 
settled at Glastonbury. In what was afterwards the church- 
yard of Glastonbury Abbey he stuck his staff into the ground. 
It immediately took root and put forth leaves, and on the day 
following, which happened to be Christmas Eve, was covered all 
over with snow-white blossoms. On every recurring Christmas 
Eve it continued thus to bloom for a long series of years, great 
numbers of pe<5ple visiting it annually to witness the miracle. 
During the time of the civil wars this bush was destroyed, but 
several trees which are descended from it by cuttings still sur- 
vive in Glastonbury and are believed to retain its characteristics. 
One of them, of rather scanty growth, occupies the site of the 
original thorn, on the summit of Weary-All Hill. Another, a 
much finer specimen, stands on private premises near the en- 
trance of a house that faces the abbot's kitchen. 

When the change of calendar was effected in 1752 a vast con- 
course of people assembled on Christmas Eve, 'New Style, to 
watch the famous thorn, " but, to their great disappointment, 
there was no appearance of its blowing, which made them watch 
it narrowly the 5th of January, the Christmas Eve, Old Style, 
when it blowed as usual." {Gentleman's Magazine, January, 
1753.) A similar refusal to blossom on the new date was observed 
in a shoot of the Glastonbury Thorn in Buckinghamshire, where 
thousands of spectators with lights and lanterns had assembled 
to see it. Thereupon the people declared that the 25th of Decem- 
ber, New Style, was not the true Christmas, and refused to 
observe it as such, most of all as the white thorn continued to 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 469 

blossom on the 5th of January as usual. (Ibid.) To put an end 
to the dispute, the clergy of the neighborhood issued an order 
that both days, Old Style and New, were to be similarly kept. 

The thorn superstition is not yet extinct. A writer in Wotes 
and Queries (Third Series, ix. 33) says, " A friend of mine met a 
girl on Old Christmas Day in a village of ISTorth Somerset, who 
told him that she was going to see the Christmas Thorn in 
blossom. He accompanied her to an orchard, where he found a 
tree, propagated from the celebrated Glastonbury Thorn, and 
gathered from it several sprigs in blossom. Afterwards the 
girl's mother informed him that it had formerly been the custom 
for the youth of both sexes to assemble under the tree at mid- 
night on Christmas Eve, in order to hear the bursting of the 
buds into flower; and, she added, 'as they corned out you could 
hear 'em haifer' (crackle)." 

Until the time of King Charles I. it was customary in England 
at Christmas time to proceed in solemn state and present the 
king and queen with a flowering branch of the G-lastonbury 
Thorn. 

^In point of fact, though the thorn does usually put forth 
blossoms at about the advent of New Year, a mild season will 
make it blossom even before Christmas., 

Aubrey mentions an oak in the JSFew Forest that was a rival 
of the Glastonbury Thorn, inasmuch as "it putteth forth young 
leaves on Christmas Day, for about a week at that time of the 
year. Old Mr. Hastings was wont to send a basketful of them 
to King Charles 1. I have seen of them several Christmases 
brought to my father. But Mr. Perkins, who lives in the New 
Forest, says that there are two other oaks besides that which 
breed green buds after Christmas Day (pollards also), but not 
constantly." 

Godfathers and Godmothers, known also as Sponsors 
(Lat. spondeo, "I promise") and Sureties. There seem to have 
been sponsors at the baptismal font in very early Christian 
times, and it is said they were first appointed by Hyginus, 
Bishop of Eome, in 154. There was at first only one sponsor for 
each catechumen, who was chosen from the deacons and deacon- 
esses. Catechumens, heretics, and penitents, and subsequently 
monks and nuns, were excluded from the office. At first it was 
not uncommon for parents to stand as sponsors, but this was 
forbidden in the ninth century, though the privilege was sub- 
sequently restored by the English Church. 

The number of sponsors for each child was prescribed by the 
fourth canon of the Council of York, in 1196, to be 7io more than 
three persons, two males and one female for a boy, and two 



470 CURIOSITIES OF 

females and one male for a girl, — a rule which is still preserved 
in the English Church. In the Eoman Church it is not neces- 
sary to have more than one godparent, though there are some- 
times more. By little and little, large presents were looked for 
from sponsors, not only to the child but to its mother; the result 
was that there grew to be a great difficulty in procuring persons 
to undertake so expensive an office. Indeed, it sometimes hap- 
pened that fraudulent parents had a child baptized thrice, for 
the sake of the godfather's gifts. To remedy these evils, a 
council held at L'Isle, in Provence, in 1288, ordered that thence- 
forth nothing was to be given to the baptized but a white robe. 
This prescription appears to have been kept for ages. Stow, in 
his " Chronicle of King James's Eeign," says, " At this time, and 
for many ages, it was not the use and custom (as now it is) for 
godfathers and godmothers to give plate at the baptism of chil- 
dren, but only to give christening shirts, with little bands and 
cuffs, wrought either with silk or blue thread, the best of them 
edged with a small lace of silk and gold." Cups and spoons 
have, however, stood their ground as favorite presents to babies 
on such occasions ever since. "Apostle spoons" — so called be- 
cause a figure of one of the apostles was chased on the handle 
of each — were anciently given, opulent sponsors presenting the 
whole twelve. Those in middling circumstances gave four, and 
the poorer sort contented themselves with the gift of one, exhib- 
iting the figure of any saint, in honor of whom the child received 
its name. 

Shakespeare in " Henry YIII." makes the king say when 
Cranmer professes himself unworthy to be sponsor to the young 
princess, — 

Come, come, my lord, you'd spare your spoons. 

Davenant's comedy of " The Wits" (1639) has these lines : 

My pendants, cascanets, and rings, 
My christening caudle-cups and spoons, 
Are dissolved into that lump. 

The coral and bells is an old invention for baptismal presents. 
Coral was anciently considered an amulet against fascination and 
evil spirits. 

Godchildren were placed not only in a state of pupilage with 
their sureties, but also in the position of relations. A sort of 
relationship was established even between the godfathers and 
godmothers, insomuch that marriage between any such parties 
was forbidden under pain of severe punishment. This injunction, 
like many others, had, it appears, been sufficiently disobeyed to 



\ 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. ' 471 

warrant a special canon (twelfth) of the Council of Compiegne, 
held so early as 757, which enforced the separation of all those 
sponsors and godchildren of both sexes who had interniarried, 
and the Church refused the rites of marriage to the women so 
separated. 

In the English Church the prohibition does not now exist, 
though there is still extant a popular saying that " those who 
meet at the font shall not meet at the altar." 

Godiva's Procession, Lady. A famous pageant which for 
two centuries has been intermittently celebrated at Coventry, 
England, on August 2. The leading figures in it are Lady 
Godiva and Peeping Tom. A local legend, part history and part 
myth, is cited in explanation of the custom. 

Matthew of Westminster, who flourished about 1300-1310, first 
set down the episode as sober history, but failed to make a place 
for '• Peeping Tom." He says, — 

" This Countess (Godiva), devoutly anxious to free the city of 
Coventry from a grievous and base thraldom, often besought the 
Count, her husband, that he would, for the love of the Holy 
Trinity and the Sacred Mother of God, liberate it from such 
servitude. But he rebuked her for vainly demanding a thing so 
injurious to himself, and forbade her to move further therein. 
Yet she, out of her womanly pertinacity, continued to press the 
matter, insomuch that she obtained this answer from him : ' As- 
cend,' he said, ' thy horse naked, and pass thus through the city, 
from one end of it to the other, in sight of the people, and on 
thy return thou shalt obtain thy request.' Upon which she re- 
turned, ' And should I be willing to do this, wilt thou give me 
leave ?' ' I will,' he responded. Then the Countess Godiva, be- 
loved of God, ascended her horse naked, loosing her long hair, 
which clothed her entire body except her snow-white legs, and 
having performed the journey, seen by none, returned with joy 
to her husband, who, regarding it as a miracle, thereupon granted 
Coventry a Charter of Freedom, confirming it with his seal." 

Everybody will remember Tennyson's lesson which incorpo- 
rates a later addition to the myth : 

, Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity ; 
I * * * * * -x- * 

And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, 

The fatal byword of all years to come, 

Boring a little auger hole in fear. 

Peeped — but his eyes before they had their will 

Were shrivelled into darkness in his head, 

And dropt before him. So the Powers who wait 

On noble deeds cancel a sense misused. 



472 CURIOSITIES OF 

How or when this "one low churl, compact of thankless 
earth," was first made the horrid antithesis of Lady Godiva's 
noble sacrifice, or why the honest vocation of a tailor was called 
upon to supply a culprit, no man can tell. But Coventry has 
accepted him as a fact. Effigies of Peeping Tom are countless 
here, — in stone, in wood, in delft, in porcelain, in wax ; while 
the very school-boys are eternally testing new jack-knives upon 
grotesque imitations of the repulsive object. " The thing leers 
at you from niches above ancient buildings ; seems to crane its 
lecherous head from the cornices of new and old hotels ; shows 
its horse-like teeth from among shop-window trifles, and haunts 
and pursues you until you are startled to see its lineaments re- 
produced in the faces of tramps and beldames in shadowy quar- 
ters of the musty old town. Truly the Peeping Tom you will 
find everywhere in Coventry is a dreadful travesty upon the 
human form and face. They have put his trunk and chest in 
armor. He is made a man of arms as well as of shears, with 
a military cocked hat decked with a huge rosette. His face is 
wide, square, and white. The eyes are Brobdingnagian in size 
and possess a leer both sanctimonious and repulsively suggestive. 
His bearded chin looks likes the mirage of a savage flame. And 
the mouth, as wide as a cow's, discloses a ghastly row of grave- 
stone teeth." (Edward L. Wakeman, in New York Sun, October 
18, 1891.) 

But if this luckless wight is merely a popular embodiment of 
evil as opposed to good. Lady Godiva at least was an historical 
personage. She was sister to Thorald, Sheriff* of Lincolnshire, and 
wife of Leofric, or Lorich, Earl of Mercia, a favorite of Edward 
the Confessor, and in his time at the head of various great state 
transactions. Both history and tradition unite in honoring Lady 
Godiva with the possession of unusual piety, goodness, and 
beauty. The devout pair certainly founded a great monastery 
for Benedictine monks, which attained enormous wealth and 
splendor, suffered strange vicissitudes, passed into silence and 
decay, and left massive vestiges of its remains on the banks of 
the river here. Leofric died at Bromley, Staffordshire, but was 
buried in one porch of the monastery at Coventry, while his 
wife, who at her death gave a "rich chain of precious stones to 
be put around the neck of the Blessed Yirgin's image, so that 
those who came of devotion thither should say as many prayers 
as there were several gems within," received burial in the other. 
It is incontestably true that the citizens of Coventry, when 
Leofric's vassals, did receive, through Lady Godiva's efforts with 
her grim warrior husband, some sort of manumission from ser- 
vile tenure. Not only do ancient records prove this, but also 
the memorial window which stood in the south transept of 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 473 

Trinity Church up to the fifteenth century, and contained a 
picture of Lady Grodiva and Leofric, the latter holding in his 
right hand a charter bearing the following inscription : 

I, Lorich, for love of thee 
Doe make Coventry tol-free. 

From the year 1217, when Coventry Fair was chartered by 
Henry III., the town of Coventry had been famous for the 
Mystery Plays performed there at the Corpus Cbristi season. 
They were an important source of attraction to the fair, ^ost 
popular of all was the play of Adam and Eve, in which our first 
parents appeared in a state of paradisiacal nudity. The destruc- 
tion of the monasteries and the discontinuance of the Mysteries 
proved a heavy blow to the wealth and trade of Coventry. Its 
population was reduced by over twelve thousand, and its fair 
was not well attended. The inhabitants had sufficient reason to 
mourn that the clothesless Eve no longer exhibited herself annu- 
ally among them. There is reason to believe that for a time 
they sought to revive the attraction in a pageant in which Eve 
perambulated the streets on horseback. 

Then the wave of Puritanism involved all festivities and pa- 
geants in a common ruin. For nearly a century the pageant 
at Coventry was discontinued. Coventry still went downward. 
Its fair had lost its fame as an emporium of commerce. Even 
the Eestoration did not improve matters much. Under these 
circumstances, the authorities hit upon the idea of reviving the 
pageant, and the licentious period of Charles II. enabled them 
to do so. The revival occurred in 1678. Mayor and corporation 
had always been in the habit of going through the streets and 
proclaiming the opening of the fair, but they were on this occa- 
sion accompanied by the trading companies of the city displaying 
flags. Boys fancifully dressed as pages took the part of the 
angels in the old Corpus Christi pageants, and in the heart of the 
procession ajiaked woman bestrode a horse. But she was no 
longer known as Eve. She was now the Lady Godiva. The local 
legend explained everything. 

/jFrom year to year until the beginning of the eighteenth cen- 
tury the nude Godiva allured to Coventry the numerous de- 
scendants of Peeping Tom in Warwickshire. Then she fell into 
disfavor, and reappeared only at irregular intervals until the 
early part of the nineteenth century, when she made way for a 
new Lady Godiva, got up more in accordance with nineteenth- 
century prejudices and clad in close-fitting cambric without a 
skirt, relieved by a variety of ornaments and a splendid gauze 
scarf suspended from her long flowing hair. For many sue- 



474 CURIOSITIES OF 

ceeding years a Godiva of this sort compromised the rival de- 
mands of the people on the one hand and of the prudes and 
parsons on the other. But the compromise was not effected 
without bitter annual quarrels, and every now and then the show 
has been suspended. 

In 1887 the Lady Godiva procession had dwindled down to 
nothingness, and for four years thereafter it was suffered to 
lapse. On August 2, 1892, it was revived by the working peo- 
ple, mainly for commercial reasons, and it was successful in 
attracting a large concourse of people. The Antiquary for Sep- 
tember, 1892, informs us that it recalled much of Dugdale's 
description of its predecessors. "There were the pageants very 
large and high, placed upon wheels, and drawn to all the emi- 
nent parts of the city for the better advantage of the specta- 
tors. Those of the bricklayers, the carpenters, and the Druids 
were especially successful. The dresses of the foresters, too, 
were bright. There were companies of various friendly socie- 
ties and trades associations, though how far these latter are the 
descendants or representatives of the Craft Guilds we know not. 
Lady Godiva herself was a gruesome failure. She appeared 
neither as she did on the famous occasion when she rode forth 
clothed on with chastity only, nor as she presumably did at nor- 
mal and less momentous times. In fact, she had simply stepped 
from the stage of nineteenth-century burlesque. The other his- 
toric personages represented were dressed with some attempt at 
accuracy. It was altogether a curious blending of the modern 
and the mediaeval. There was the feudal knight in silken mas- 
querade. The chimney-pot hats of the committee followed in 
close proximity behind St. George of England. Brass bands 
blatantly heralded ' the lady champion swimmer' who was for 
the nonce 'the woman of a thousand summers back.' But, 
most incongruously congruous of all, in the early part of the 
procession came a car advertising tubular bells, at its close 
rolled a vehicle setting forth the merits of Bolus's pills." 

Going in State. In England this is the name given to a 
triumphal procession in which civic or regal dignitaries form the 
central glory. The mayor of London, for example, goes in 
state on the occasion of his inauguration on every successive 
November 9. But the most important ceremonial of this sort 
is when the reigning sovereign goes from Buckingham Palace 
to the cathedral of St. Paul's to render thanks for some signal 
benefit accorded by the Almighty to the royal family or the 
royal dominions. About the earliest occasion of this sort on an 
important scale was when Henry lY. in 1399 went to St. Paul's 
to offer up prayers on his accession to the throne. Henry YI. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 475 

followed the example of his predecessor, and Henry VII., after 
the defeat of Lambert Simnel, went on two successive days in 
solemn procession to return thanks to God. But one of the 
grandest processions to the church of St. Paul was when, on 
Sunday, the 21st of May, 1514, Henry YIII. went to receive 
the sword and cap of maintenance which the Pope had sent 
him as Defender of the Faith. The crowd on this occasion was 
estimated as numbering over thirty thousand people. 

The next grand occasion was when Queen Elizabeth went, in 
magnificent splendor, on the 24th of November, 1588, to old St. 
Paul's. She was seated in a kind of triumphal chariot, drawn 
by two white horses, and was received at the door of the church 
by the Bishop of London, the dean, and fifty other clergymen, 
habited in superb copes. On entering the church the queen 
kneeled, pronounced a prayer, and then proceeded to her seat, 
under a canopy, in the choir, when the Litany was chanted. 
After that she was conducted to a closet, prepared for the oc- 
casion in the north wall of the church, "where," says an his- 
torian of the occasion, fshame to our effeminacy, she remained 
exposed to the wintry blasts of November during the space of 
time which Pierce, Bishop of Salisbury, occupied in delivering 
a sermon." 

Several of these thanksgiving services took place in the reign 
of Queen Anne. Scarcely an important victory was gained in 
this reign — when important victories were by no means infre- 
quent — but what the pious queen proceeded in solemn state 
to return thanks to the Almighty for the divine favor. One of 
the grandest of these occasions, perhaps, was on the 12th of 
November, 1702, after the brilliant successes of Marlborough 
in the Low Countries and the destruction of the Spanish fleet 
in the harbor of Yigo by the Duke of Ormond and Sir George 
Rooke. Dean Milman, in his "Annals of St. Paul's," says that 
the Council declared that the cathedral being for that day the 
queen's Chapel Eoyal, the seats were to be disposed of and all 
the arrangements made by the Lord Chamberlain. The queen's 
throne, as in the House of Lords of that day, was about three 
feet higher than the floor of the choir, covered with a Persian 
carpet, and surmounted ^by a canopy fifteen feet high. There 
was, according to the proclamation, an arm-chair on the throne, 
and a desk for the queen's book, covered with crimson velvet, 
richly embroidered and fringed with gold, with a cushion of the 
same. The two Houses of Parliament assisted at the ceremony, 
the Lords being seated in the area or body of the choir, the 
Speaker of the House of Commons in a seat next to the Lord 
Bishop of London, in the middle of the south side of the choir, 
and the members in the stalls and galleries on each side. 



476 CURIOSITIES OF 

In the procession to the cathedral the House of Commons led 
the way. At eight o'clock they went to St. James's Palace, then 
along Pali-Mall, and so to the cathedral, where they took their 
places. The Lords met at ten, and formed into procession, pre- 
ceded by the officers of the House, masters in chancery, judges, 
peers under age, then barons, bishops, viscounts, earls, dukes, 
the great officers of state, the archbishops, and the Keeper of 
the Great Seal. In that order they proceeded to the cathedral, 
and took their seats till the arrival of the queen, the organ in 
the interval playing voluntaries. At eleven o'clock the queen 
entered her carriage at St. James's. At Temple Bar she was 
received by the lord mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen, on horse- 
back. 

Then the lord mayor surrendered the sword, prefacing the 
ceremony with a brief speech. It was immediately returned by 
the queen, and the lord mayor carried it before her to the 
church. On her arrival at the west door her majesty was met 
by the peers and principal officers of state, and conducted along 
the nave to her throne. Then followed divine service, and a 
sermon of about half an hour's duration from the old Whig 
Bishop of Exeter, Sir Jonathan Trelawney. The queen led the 
way back. The Tower guns, those on the river, and those in 
St. James's Park were fired three times : once, as the queen left 
St. James's ; next, when the Te JDeum was chanted ; and, lastly, 
on the queen's return to the palace. 

This procession was taken as the established model for all 
subsequent occasions of the same sort ; and when George III. 
went in state to St. Paul's, on the 23d of April, 1789, after his 
recovery from a dangerous illness, the form of the ceremony was, 
in the main, similar to that just described. 

Blackwood's Magazine for March, 1842, gives a description of 
a pageant of this sort in the early days of Queen Yictoria: 

" First come, trotting slowly, a detachment of Life Guards 
clearing the way — their sabres glisten in the air — their bearskin 
caps flout the sky — ladies are in raptures — such divine men, 
such lovely coats, beautiful swords — fascinating mustaches — 
handsome horses ; and then the officer, covered with gold lace — 
divine, love-inspiring man ! — tremble now, ye unwhiskered 
beaux, for the affections of your fair ones, and assure your- 
selves, that however your belles may regard you, at this moment 
that dear delightful officer is the god of their idolatry ; and what- 
ever sweet smiles they may condescendingly bestow on you, 'tis 
of that Adonis of the household troops they are thinking all the 
while. But the ladies have no time to fall desperately in love, 
for the beef-eaters appear — remarkable old files, in the fashion 
of the days of Elizabeth, with embroidered frocks, and little 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 477 

porringer velvet caps, bedizened with red and white ribbon, hal- 
berts over their shoulders, tottering and shambling along, hke 
pilgrims of the unboiled peas; — next following, behold several 
preliminary carriages and four, containing lovely ladies of the 
bedchamber, in lappets and diamonds, and fair-faced, elegant 
gentlemen of the ditto, in blue embroidered coats, and elegantly 
fitting primrose tights : — a little pretty- faced page, in a military 
uniform, lolls carelessly in the lap of a lovely lady, like a sucking 
Mars nurtured by one of the Graces ; next, in a carriage and six 
splendid bays, comes the Master of the Horse, a grand and awe- 
inspiring personage ; after him, in a carriage with half a dozen 
beautiful blacks, the gracious-looking Mistress of the Robes ; and 
then, heralded by another squadron of horse, moves past us, 
more slowly than the rest, a pale, fair form, of youthful grace 
and beauty, her brow encircled by a diadem, and thoughtful, as 
if the weight of that glittering but uneasy burden pressed upon 
the brain ; each heart, as she passes, is upon each lip, and a burst 
of enthusiasm heralds the youthful Monarch in her triumphant 
way. A cloud of horse closes the procession, but unheeded and 
unremembered ; we turn awa}", oppressed with the weight of 
reflection that crowds upon us, contemplating the form of her 
upon whose dominions the sun never sets, and whose sovereignty 
a hundred millions of human beings cheerfully obey; whose 
councils influence, directly or indirectly, the interests of the 
civilized world." 

In February, 1872, Queen Victoria went in state to offer 
public thanks at St. Paul's for the recovery of the Prince of 
Wales from a dangerous illness. 

Golden Rose. Once a year at the utmost, on the fourth 
Sunday in Lent (known theologically as Lsetare Sunday, but 
more popularly as Mothering Sunday), a golden rose is blessed 
by the Pope, to be afterwards sent off as a mark of approval to 
Catholic members of royal or noble families, either male or 
female, to great generals, to noted churches and sanctuaries, to 
illustrious Catholic cities or republics. But often no one is con- 
sidered worthy of the honor, and then it is laid away in the 
Yatican and brought out again the next year. 

Originally the Grolden Rose was a single flower of wrought 
gold, colored red ; afterwards the golden petals were decked with 
rubies and other gems; finally the form adopted was that of a 
branch, bearing leaves, thorns, and buds, and a full-blown rose 
at the top, all of pure gold. The branch is put in a decorated 
flower-pot, which has engraved on its pedestal the arms and 
name of the Pope who blessed and bestowed the gift. Its 
intrinsic value was formerly very great, but economical reasons 



478 CURIOSITIES OF 

have caused the later Popes to dispense with the splendid ruby- 
that used to be attached as a bud to the chief flower, and with 
the other precious stones with which the branch w^as laden. The 
vase, once of gold, is now silver gilt. Pope Clement IX. sent a 
rose to the Queen of France which weighed eight pounds and 
was valued at eight thousand francs. 

Popular opinion dates the observance of this custom from the 
year 1049, under the pontificate of Leo IX. There is now every 
reason to suppose that he was not the originator ; but it was this 
Pope who, wishing to establish his right of patronage over the 
monastery of the Holy Cross in Alsace, decreed that the abbess 
should supply the Golden Rose every year, ready made, or two 
ounces of gold with which to supply the goldsmith. And this 
mandate naturally connected his name with the emblem in such 
a way as to give the impression that he was something more 
than a mere imitator of his predecessors. 

In the eleventh century, according to Mabillqn, the Pope 
sang mass on Laetare Sunday in the basilica of Santa Croce in 
Gerusalemme, holding the rose in his hand during the Gospel, 
and while preaching a sermon of which, as it were, the flower 
aiforded the text. The rose was presented before the mass to 
the Holy Father, in his room, by a chamberlain, together with 
balm and musk In many a Eoman Ordo^ and in briefs arid 
other documents of an early date, constant mention is made of 
the rose and of its usage, but nowhere mention of its being 
blessed. The first to mention the ceremony of blessing the rose 
is Agostino Patrizio, master of ceremonies to Pope Innocent 
YIIL, in his work printed at Yenice in 1488. It may have been 
Nicholas Y. who first blessed the rose. The Pope was crowned 
on Lsetare Sunday, and went, riding on a milk-white steed, to 
take possession of his cathedral at the Lateran, holding in his 
hand the precious rose. The blessing always now takes place at 
the high mass on Mid-Lent Sunday. The rose is placed between 
two lighted tapers on a table in the sacristy, and is presented by 
the youngest cleric of the Pope's household to the Pope on his 
way to the Sistine Chapel. The Holy Father, in alb and stole, 
after placing incense in a thurible held by the senior cardinal 
priest present, reads a special prayer for the occasion, and places 
the scents in the rose, which he blesses and incenses. The rose 
is then carried before the Pope to the altar at which his Holiness 
celebrates mass, where it remains until the Holy Sacrifice is over, 
when it is taken away to the pontifical treasury. 

Originally it seems to have been the custom to present the 
golden rose to the Prefect of Eome after the latter had led the 
Pope's horses by a golden bridle to the doors of the Lateran 
basilica and aided his Hohness to dismount. But the distribu- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 479 

lion of the gift soon became broadened, and it was bestowed 
both upon persons and places. 

It is an old superstition that the Golden Eose brings ill luck to 
its owner. People cite the instances of Joanna of Sicily, the 
first Eose Queen, made so by Urban YI., who was dethroned and 
strangled by her nephew, Gonsalvo de Cordova, the Great Cap- 
tain, who died in disgrace ; the Queen of Naples, wife of King 
Bomba, the Empress Josephine, Isabella herself, and other high 
dignitaries, who shortly after the reception of the Golden Eose 
met with death or misfortune. So when, in 1889, Pope Leo 
singled out Dona Isabella of Brazil for this honor, her country- 
men predicted that evil would befall her or her family, and, in 
fact, before the news was out Dom Pedro was dethroned and she 
was no longer the heiress to a sceptre. 

It has been stated that the Golden Eose was sent to two 
American ladies, Mrs. William T. Sherman and Miss Mary Cald- 
well, whose gift of three hundred thousand dollars to the Catholic 
University at Washington would certainly be worthy of such 
an acknowledgment. But, in fact, these ladies received formal 
tokens of Papal approval, but not the Golden Eose. The rule has 
never been broken which requires that the Golden Eose shall be 
presented to no individuals outside of royalty and the nobility. 

Good Friday. The Friday in Holy Week, instituted in com- 
memoration of Christ's crucifixion. It probably received this 
name from the good things which he gained for us by his suf- 
fering and death. A plausible alternative etymology, however, 
would make it a corruption of Goddes or God's Friday. Among 
the Saxons it was called Long Friday, probably on account of 
the long fasts and ofiSces used on this day. 

From the first ages of the Church the commemoration of 
Christ's suff'erings has been kept as a day of strictest fasting and 
humiliation. The Fourth Council in 633 severely rebuked all 
those who fasted only up to three p.m., and shut them out from 
participation in the Paschal communion. 

Much of this early austerity is remitted, but the day is still 
one of strict fast and mourning. In the Eoman Church the 
ofiiciating clergy appear in black garments, the altar is stripped, 
the candles are not lighted. After a short pause the altar is 
covered with white cloths. Passages from the Old and New 
Testaments are read and prayers are recited. Mass cannot be 
consecrated on this day, but the priest receives a host conse- 
crated on Holy Thursday. A special feature of the day is the 
Adoration of the Cross. After mass the crucifix is divested of 
the black with which it had been covered, and is kissed by the 
clergy and people while four hymns are sung. 



480 CURIOSITIES OF 

In the Latin countries this Adoration of the Cross is a far 
more elaborate ceremony. A huge crucifix or a wax image of 
Christ rests on a cushion on the floor for all to kiss. In many 
places the effigy is buried in the afternoon with solemn rites in 
an Easter sepulchre {q. v.), there to remain until the dawn of 
Easter Sunday, when it is returned to the church. The Easter 
sepulchre is sometimes a temporary and sometimes a permanent 
adjunct to the church. In Eome the ceremony is far more sim- 
ple. The eucharistic body of Christ, blessed on Holy Thursday, 
is borne in a silver monstrance by the Pope and the cardinals in 
procession from the Sistine Chapel into .that of St. Paul. There 
the host is deposited in a glittering shrine of crystal which 
towers up to the ceiling and is so placed as to appear bathed in 
light while the rest of the chapel is in darkness. For the re- 
mainder of Thursday and the beginning of Friday it is exposed 
to the veneration of the faithful. 

In Munich and Yienna the ceremony is the most elaborate in 
Europe. An e^gy of Christ is placed on a bier covered with a 
white veil, and borne in procession round the interior of the 
church. First come the choristers in their white robes, then 
priests in black and white, with the bier in their centre, then a 
long train of men, followed by another long train of women, all 
in black, and all bearing lighted tapers. Thus slowly proceeding 
round the church, the figure is laid in the sepulchre. 

This is usually an imitation cave under the altar. Artificial 
rocks surround the opening, a small lamp is suspended over the 
corpse, and a row of tiny lamps burn upon the ground in front, 
not unlike footlights, save that each burns behind a small globe 
filled with colored liquids, green, blue, crimson, and yellow, after 
the fashion of the ornamental bottles in drug-stores. The altar 
above is transformed into a very mountain of plants and flowers, 
blooming in pots which are artfully concealed or beautifully 
decorated. Lights are disposed everywhere on the altar. Fig- 
ures of angels in fluttering robes of pale pink and white, and 
with very yellow hair and very pink cheeks, crown the moun- 
tain-top. 

Tall orange-trees in tubs, laurels, and cedars stand in groups 
on either hand. " To complete the general idea, jon must im- 
agine the rest of the church darkened, with daylight struggling 
through blinded windows, and through the doorways, as the 
heavy doors swing ever to and fro to admit the entrance and the 
departure of the restless crowd. Imagine, also, a dense multi- 
tude circulating through all these churches, and only stationary 
before the sepulchre ; and, above the shuffle of feet and the 
murmur of prayers or adoration, fitful, plaintive strains of music, 
moaning through the gloom, and the sonorous voices of the 




ADORATION OF THE CROSS AT ST. PETER's. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 481 

priests chanting their solemn dirge. Such, with slight varia- 
tions, was the scene in the Munich churches throughout this 
Good Friday." {Household Words.) 

A famous procession of the Dead Christ occurs triennially at 
the Httle village of San Domino near Florence, Italy. In The 
Churchman for April 10, 1897, Miss Edith E. Crosby thus de- 
scribes the procession as she had seen it on the Good Friday 
of 1896 : " Heralded by the eager buzz and murmur of the ex- 
pectant people, a half dozen Eoman soldiers came galloping up 
the narrow street, raising a cloud of dust about them ; their cos- 
tumes of red and blue, and much tinsel, probably borrowed from 
some provincial theatre company. Behind them, in martial step, 
came a really fine military band, with muffed drums, playing a 
heart-breaking funeral march, which hushed the spectators and 
prepared their impressionable spirits for what was coming. 
After the band came a company of young village girls, in black, 
with long black veils, and holding huge burning tapers ; then 
little boys, in white, carrying the emblems of the Passion and 
Crucifixion, — the scarlet robe, the scourges and chains, the dice, 
the spear, a large stuifed cock, and banners inscribed with the seven 
words. Then, quite alone, bearing herself with the instinctive 
theatrical grace of the Italians, a tiny girl, as an angel, dressed 
in pink, with white wings, and curly hair, holding the great gilt 
cup steadily in her little hands. After her walked old men in 
sackcloth. Then another band playing a dirge. Then all the 
priests of the village and environs, in their holiday vestments, 
and behind them, after a solemn pause, with much swinging of 
incense, the huge catafalque, rolling silently through the clear 
starlit and lamplit night, bearing the life-size figure of the Gesu 
Morte, the dead Jesus, extended under a heavy baldaquin of 
black and silver. By the time that it reached us, the solemn 
music, the slow-stepping procession, the tense expectancy of the 
crowd, and the hallowing influence of the night, had so worked 
upon our imagination that all seemed terribly real, and terribly 
sad, and as the dead Jesus was borne past us. His pale, calm face 
turned towards us, and all around us fell upon their knees, bare- 
headed, we bent our heads, and knelt with them. 

"But a moment later the spell was broken by a tasteless 
statue of the Virgin, which followed the catafalque, dressed in 
deep mourning, and holding a lace handkerchief to her stream- 
ing eyes. Behind her came contadine representing the women 
of the crucifixion ; among others, Mary, with her hair down her 
back, and her alabaster box of ointment in her hand. Another 
band and a few more Eoman soldiers finished the procession." 

Similar celebrations occur in the Greek Church, both in Greece 
and in Eussia. On Holy Thursday a prostrate image of Christ 

31 



482 CURIOSITIES OF 

on the cross is brought out by the priest and laid in the middle 
of the church. The devout — usually more women and children 
than men — then come forward and kiss the hands and feet of 
the image. When leaving the church each one is expected to 
leave a coin on one of the holy disks, for which he receives a 
blessing in return. 

On Good Friday evening there is a service called the Epi- 
taphion, — a kind of funeral service in memory of the mourning 
and sorrow at the burial of Christ. Then the image of Christ 
is placed on a bier and borne in solemn procession through the 
streets. Crowds of people take part, all carrying lighted candles. 

The military band with muffled drums plays a dead march, 
and at intervals the people cross themselves before a large wooden 
cross carried at the head of the procession. 

In Catholic England Good Friday was the day upon which the 
king blessed certain rings and thereby was supposed to endow 
them with a miraculous power of curing cramps. The service 
which attended the blessing of those cramp-rings was so original 
that it deserves description. The king and his suite would pro- 
ceed in state to the palace chapel, upon the floor of which rested 
a crucifix upon a silken cushion, and in front of which was spread 
a rich carpet. The king would creep along the carpet to the 
crucifix, — as a token of absolute humility, — his " almoner" creep- 
ing after him. Having reached the crucifix, he would there 
bless the cramp-rings, which were deposited in a silver basin. 
After this was done, the queen and her ladies-in-waiting entered 
the chapel and also crept to the cross. This completed the cere- 
mony, and the rings had been transformed into the most potent 
remedial agents. The custom probably arose from the miracu- 
lous properties accredited to Edward the Confessor's ring, which 
was kept in Westminster Abbey for a long time. 

In London, and all over England (not, however, in Scotland), 
the morning of Good Friday is ushered in with a universal cry 
of " Hot cross buns !" A parcel of them appears on every 
breakfast-table. The hot cross bun is rather a small bun, more 
than usually spiced, and having its brown sugary surface marked 
with a cross. The ear of everj^ person who has ever dwelt in 
England is familiar with the cry of the street bun-venders. 
Usually it runs as follows : 

One a penny, buns, 
Two a penny, buns, 
One a penny, two a penny, 
Hot cross buns ! 

There are many variants, however, the following being an 
instance : 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 483 

One a penny, two a penny, 
Hot cross buns. 

If you have no daughters. 

Give them to your sons ; 
But if you have none of these merry little elves. 
Then you may keep them all for yourselves. 

Men, women, and children used to be early astir to supply the 
general demand, carrying large baskets covered with flannel and 
white cloth to keep their fresh wares warm. For a century and 
a half Chelsea was famous for its buns. Swift mentions the 
"rare Chelsea buns" in his "Journal to Stella," in 1712. These 
were made and sold at the Old Chelsea Bun-House, in Jews' 
Eow, a single-story building, with a colonnade projecting over 
the foot-pavement. It was a great meeting-place on Good Friday 
mornings, sometimes as many as fifty thousand persons calling 
for buns, two hundred and forty thousand of which have been 
sold in a single day. 

A rival bun-house arose, and competition became fierce, espe- 
cially in the reign of George III., when royalty itself deigned to 
visit Chelsea to partake of these delicacies. 

The history of the cross bun goes back to the time of Cecrops, 
and to the liba offered to Astarte, and thence can be traced 
upward through the Jewish passover cakes, and the eucharistic 
bread, or cross-marked wafers, mentioned in St. Chrysostom's 
Liturgy. So that the Good Friday bun has antiquity and tra- 
dition to recommend it ; and, indeed, its very name of bun is but 
the oblique boun, from bous, the sacred ox, the semblance of 
whose horns was stamped upon the cake. There, too, they also 
did duty for the horns of Astarte, in which word some philolo- 
gists affect to trace a connection with Easter. The substitution 
by the Greeks of the cross-mark in place of the horn -mark would 
seem to have chiefly been for the easier division of the round 
bun into four equal parts. Such cross-marked buns were found 
at Herculaneum. 

The original home of the English custom, where it is still 
chiefly observed, is Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire. There 
the old Eoman roads, the Icknield Street and the Armynge 
Street, crossed. There stood in Eoman times the altar of Diana 
of the Cross ways, to whom the Eomans offered their sacred 
cakes. 

In many parts a small loaf of bread is baked on the morning 
of Good Friday and then put by till the same anniversary in 
the ensuing year. This bread is not intended to be eaten, but 
to be used as a medicine, and the mode of administering it is by 
grating a small portion of it into water and forming a sort of 
panada. It is believed to be good for many disorders, but par- 



484 CURIOSITIES OF 

ticularly for diarrhoea, for which it is considered a sovereign 
remedy. Some years ago a cottager lamented that her poor 
neighbor must certainly die of this complaint, because she had 
already given her two doses of Good Friday bread without any 
benefit. (Brand : Popular Antiquities, 1849, vol. i. p. 155 ; see 
Notes and Queries, Third Series, vol. iii. pp. 262, 263.) 

Every Good Friday a large crowd gathers at St. Bartholomew's 
Church in London (which all through the remainder of the year 
is practically deserted) to witness a performance that is anything 
but agreeable, — namelj, twenty-one aged women bending down 
on the floor to pick up twenty-one sixpences. Some time before 
the Great Fire, but exactly when is not known, a lady bequeathed 
property to have twenty-one sixpences laid upon her grave-stone 
in St. Bartholomew's Church, which were to be picked up and 
severally owned by the same number of aged widow women. 
The grave stone was to be in the floor ; and the lady was so 
particular as to provide that any widow who from infirmities 
could not, or from pride would not, stoop down to procure a six- 
pence, should not have it. The name of the testatrix and the 
actual place of her burial are now forgotten, as all the records of 
the period were destroyed in the Great Fire. Nevertheless the 
sixpences are picked up from the floor by the most aged women 
that can still bend the stifl'ening hinges of their limbs. 

At the church of All Hallows a sermon is preached every 
Good Friday, in accordance with the direction in the will of 
Peter Symonds, dated 1587, to the youngest boj^s of the Blue- 
Coat School, after which sixty new pennies and sixty packets of 
raisins are distributed among them. Under the same will the 
children of Langbourn Ward Schools who help in the choir, and 
the children of the Sunday-school, receive each a bun, and various 
sums of new money, ranging from one penny to one shilling, be- 
sides the poor of the parish, on whom it bestowed one shilling 
each and a loaf. The money used to be given away over the 
tomb of the donor, until the railway in Liverpool Street effaced 
the spot. 

The custom of skipping the rope on Good Friday still exists 
at Brighton, though it is rapidly falling into disuse. It is gener- 
ally practised with a long rope, from six to ten adults skipping 
at one rope. Formerly the entire fishing community used to 
engage in this amusement during the whole day, which was 
thence known as Long-Eope Day. In nearly all the Sussex 
villages marbles are played on Good Friday by both boys and 
men. 

At Guildford, Surrey, many people flock to St. Martha's Hill. 
Formerly they used to spend the day in singing and dancing; 
but this part of the festivities is no longer retained. St. Martha's 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 4^5^ 

Church on this spot is an old pilgrim church whither the faith- 
ful used to go when they were on their way to the shrine of St. 
Thomas of Canterbury. But Martha's Hill is said to be a cor- 
ruption of Martyr's Hill. Doubtless the visit of the Guildford 
folk is a relic of some ancient religious ceremony or pilgrimage. 

In Spain the senoras appear in the streets in funeral garb. No 
colors are worn. Even the jeunesse doree are in black from hat 
to boots, with jet studs and sleeve-buttons. Fashionable ladies 
sit within the church doors and beg in the name of charity and 
earn large sums for the poor. 

The hanging or burning of Judas in efQ.gy is celebrated on 
Good Friday or Holy Saturday in Portuguese countries. 

Many are the quaint and often grotesque rites observed in 
other countries on this the anniversary of Christ's Passion. 
There is the Mystery Play at Monaco, with its night procession. 
The countless candles and torches, the fantastic costumes of the 
participants, the minor, monotonous chanting of the priests, all 
combine — canopied as they are with the starlit heavens — to cast 
a poetic spell about the scene, hiding the grotesqueness of its 
mummeries and bringing out only its beauties. Lastly, there 
is the procession of penitents in the Sicilian city of Palermo. 
Masked with a hood, which only contains two holes to see 
through, crowned with a garland of thorns, and wearing a rope 
noose around their necks, which also is tied around their clasped 
hands, thus do the penitents parade through the streets, mar- 
shalled by priests or monks. 

Gorsedd. A mystic ceremony which usually precedes the 
opening of an Eisteddfod (q. v.). It is performed in an open 
space. In the centre of this is a huge stone, the " Maen Llog," 
surrounded by a circle, thirty feet in diameter, of other stones, 
supposed to represent the signs of the zodiac. On the outside 
of the eastern portion of the circle three more stones are placed, 
in such a position as regards the Gorsedd stone that lines drawn 
from it to them will indicate the rising of the sun at the summer 
and winter solstices and the vernal and autumnal equinoxes re- 
spectively. To this Gorsedd stone moves a curious and pictu- 
resque procession of bards, druids, and ovates, or candidates for 
higher orders. The first are dressed in blue, to indicate their celes- 
tial aspirations, the second in white, as a symbol of great purity, 
the third in green, to represent the grass of the field, which is 
typical of growth and progress. One of the bards carries a 
sword by its point, to show that he is a man of peace and would 
prefer to turn the weapon against himself rather than against 
any other person. On arriving at the circle, a prayer, said to have 
been composed thirteen hundred years ago, is recited, and then 



486 CURIOSITIES OF 

the Gorsedd is declared to be opened, and the business of confer- 
ring degrees on the bards and ovates is proceeded with. Then 
follows the Eisteddfod. This is thrown open to the general 
public which is not initiated into the mysteries of bardism. 




Opening Ceremonies at a Gorsedd. 

Gregory the Great, St. His festival is celebrated on March 
12, the anniversary of his death. 

St. Gregory was the son of a Roman senator, and was born in 
540. He was praetor of Rome for twelve years, but later he 
turned his house into a monastery and hospital, and lived in a 
cell there as a Benedictine monk. On the death of Pope Pelagius, 
Gregory was elected to succeed him. During his popedom he 
convened many synods and endeavored to restore the discipline 
of the Church. He rearranged the liturgy and introduced the 
style of chanting still called Gregorian. Legends relate many 
miracles performed by this saint, and tell of heavenly messengers 
that appeared to him. One legend relates that he gave many 
alms to a beggar who came and besought him again and again 
until Gregory gave him his last possession, a silver bowl given 
to him by his mother. Years afterwards when he became Pope 
he daily entertained twelve poor men at his table; but one night 
he beheld thirteen, though his steward could see only twelve. 
Gregory inquired of the thirteenth man who he was. "I am 
the beggar," was the reply, "whom thou didst relieve; but my 
name is Wonderful, and through me thou shalt obtain whatso- 
ever thou askest of God." John the Deacon, secretary to St. 
Gregory, has left an account in which he declares that he has 
seen the Holy Spirit in the shape of a dove perched upon the 
shoulder of St. Gregory as he wrote. This explains why the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 487 

dove is so often an attribute of St. Gregory in art. St. Gregory 
died in 604, and his remains were laid in the Vatican church. 
In 826 the remains were translated to Soissons and placed in the 
monastery of St. Medard. The head was placed in the abbey of 
St. Pierre-le-Yif, at Sens, and a bone was given to Eome at the 
request of Urban YIII. in 1628. The Council of Clif, or Clove- 
shore, in 747 commanded that the feast of St. Gregory be ob- 
served as a holy-day in all the monasteries of England. The 
Council of Oxford in 1222 extended the holy-day to the whole 
kingdom. 

The feast was formerly observed as a holiday in all the rural 
schools in the baronies of Forth and Baigy (the Strongbonian 
Colony) in the county of Wexford, Ireland. The manner of 
observance was this. The children for some days previous 
brought contributions, according to tbe means and liberality of 
their parents, consisting of money, bread, butter, cream, etc., 
and delivered them to the teacher. On the morning of the 
joyous day the children repaired to the school-house in holiday 
dress, where the teacher had everything prepared for the fes- 
tivity, the simple temple of learning decorated with the richest 
flowers within his means of obtaining, and the presence of two 
or more kind-hearted females to do the honors and duties of the 
tea-table to the happy juveniles. A " king" and a " queen" were 
nominated, who, of course, took the seat of honor, and the proud 
and busy teacher was everywhere all attention to his little pupils. 
The day passed off in hilarity and innocent enjoyment, and the 
competitive system of free offerings left, generally, something 
pleasing to tell for some days in the pockets and humble cup- 
board of the teacher. This custom prevailed until after the 
beginning of the present century. 

Guadalupe, Our Lady of. (Sp. Nuestra 8enora de Guada- 
lupe.) A famous picture of the Virgin, preserved in the collegiate 
church of Guadalupe, a little town three and a half miles north 
of Mexico. The number of pilgrims, singly and in bands, that 
resort to this shrine entitles Guadalupe to the designation of the 
American Lourdes. Special ceremonies are celebrated on the 
12th of every month, but the great festival of the year is on 
December 12, the anniversary of the first appearance of the 
picture, when the Indians from far and near assemble in vast 
troops to do honor to their patroness, huge crowds standing on 
the eve of the feast through the night at the church doors, so as 
to gain entrance in the morning. Other devotees on their knees 
make the ascent of the neighboring steep of Tepayacac. Nor 
are Indians alone attracted hither. Dainty dames in Spanish 
mantillas are jostled by frowsy drabs from Cuautitlan, dudes 



488 CURIOSITIES OF 

from the Paseo find themselves cheek by jowl with half-clad 
muleteers, fashionable broughams compete for place with ram- 
shackle hackney-coaches. 

The pontifical high mass begins at twelve o'clock, and when 
it is well under way, beggars, decked out in the bizarre garniture 
of olden days, with plumes of feathers and gaudy masks, dance 
their barbaric reels in the middle of the church. ^ 

The legend runs that in the year 1531 an Indian convert, bap- 
tized under the name of Juan Diego, was thrice blessed with a 
vision of the Virgin Mary, who bade him make known to the 
Bishop of Mexico that she desired a church to be built on the 
spot where she had appeared, and that she would be a kind and 
loving mother to the poor Indians and to all who should invoke 
her aid. But when the bishop, doubting, requested the attesta- 
tion of some sign or miracle, the Virgin on the third day bade 
Juan fill his tilma^ or homespun blanket, with flowers. And 
when he took the flower-laden tilma to the bishop and opened it 
out before him, lo ! it was found that the flowers, though visible 
to the eye, were not palpable to the touch, and moreover that a 
marvellous picture was limned upon the blanket in colors which 
partook of no earthly quality and with an art no human hand 
could equal. And this picture was the portrait of the Holy 
Virgin as she had appeared to Juan. The sign was accepted, the 
church was built, the picture was hung up within the church. 
And there it has remained ever since during all the successive 
enlargements from the original chapel to the present imposing 
edifice, save that at the time of the terrible floods of 1629, when 
the ordinary road-bed was submerged, the archbishop and his 
attendants went by boat, in solemn pilgrimage, to Guadalupe, 
and transferred the venerated pictures to his cathedral. Here it 
was visited by immense crowds of devotees, day by day, until 
the waters subsided. By common acclamation relief from the 
total destruction which threatened Mexico was attributed to Our 
Lady of Guadalupe. ^ 

" After that period," says Archbishop Corrigan of New York, 
in an article in The Seminary for December, 1895, " devotion to 
Our Lady of Guadalupe spread so rapidly throughout the entire 
kingdom that it would be worse than useless to adduce proofs to 
establish its universality./' At this day you can hardly enter a 
shop in the city of Mexico without finding a lamp burning before 
a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe. You can hardly enter a 
church without seeing an altar erected in her honor. $ Indeed, 
the Provincial Council of Antequera or Oaxaca specially ordains 
that no church be built in the entire province without its special 
altar in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Every diocese in 
Mexico dedicates the 12th of every month to Our Lady of Gua- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 489 

dalupe, and every year sends thousands of devout pilgrims to 
her shrine. When the patriot priest, Hidalgo, who is called the 
/Washington of Mexico, began the fight for independence in 1810, 
his standard and his battle-cry were ' Our Lady of Guadalupe.' , 
The revolution itself, although it despoiled every other church in 
Mexico, has ever respected this shrine of Our Lady. In one 
word, the Virgin of Guadalupe has taken such hold on the 
Mexican people that to attempt to dislodge her from their affec- 
tions would be to tear out their hearts by the roots." 

Archbishop Corrigan was one of the twenty-two foreign prel- 
ates who, with the" forty-three bishops of Mexico, and fifty 
thousand pilgrims of all ranks, were present at the coronation 
of the Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe on October 12, 1895. The 
crown, which is of gold, sparkling with precious stones, and 
valued at twenty-five thousand dollars, was lifted up to a level 
with the head in the picture. 

A number of interesting details are given by Archbishop Cor- 
rigan in the article already quoted from. 

" The material," he says, " on which the image is formed is a 
coarse product of the maguey plant, such as is still used by the 
Indians for their wraps and for other domestic purposes. The 
image is painted on this rough canvas, without any sizing or 
preparation. In fact, the canvas is transparent, the same image 
showing on both sides. At various times the picture has been 
examined by a committee of experts composed of distinguished 
artists and of scientific men, and they have deposed under oath 
that they could not account either for its production or for its 
preservation. The image exhibits peculiar characteristics of 
painting in oil, in water-color, in distemper, and in relief In 
fact, these four dissimilar kinds of painting are discernible in 
different portions of the same canvas ; and, in addition to this, 
the gilding, which appears in the stars embroidered on the gar- 
ment of Our Lady and in the texture of the robe itself, as well 
as in the rays of light which issue from the figure, is not applied 
according to any known process, and seems rather to have been 
woven into the fibre than painted on it. 

" Apart from the curious commingling of dissimilar kinds of 
painting on the same canvas, there is this other peculiarity about 
the picture, that for years it was exposed, without any covering, 
not only to the smoke of censers and innumerable candles, but 
to the damp air, charged with saltpetre, which continually arises 
from the neighboring lakes and marshes, and which affects and 
corrodes the hardest substances ; and yet, after a period of more 
than three hundred and sixty years, this product of the maguey 
plant, which ought to have perished long ago, is still in a state 
of perfect preservation. This is the more remarkable, because 



490 ' CURIOSITIES OF 

experiments have been tried in the same locality with similar 
material, but with very different results. An able artist, Don 
Eafael Gutierrez, took a fine tilma, September 12, 1789, and 
painted on it a fac-simile of Our Lady of Guadalupe. When 
finished, it was protected by a glass cover and placed in the 
neighboring chapel, Del Pocito. The result was that before 
eight years elapsed it was so discolored and disfigured by the 
fumes of the saltpetre that it was necessary to withdraw it from 
public view and relegate it to the sacristy. 

" The great proof of the authenticity of the apparitions," the 
archbishop continues, "is the constant and uninterrupted tradi- 
tion, bearing all the marks of credibility, accepted by all classes 
of people, and extending from the days of Juan Diego to our 
own time. This tradition has been twice officially examined and 
approved by the Holy See. Only last year, after a long and most 
searching examination, Pope Leo XIII. granted a new office and 
mass in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, by letters dated March 
6, 1894. In 1754, Pope Benedict XIY. had already granted a sim- 
ilar favor, although the text relating to the apparition was not 
so explicit. In fact, hardly a Pontiff has sat on the throne of 
Peter during the past two hundred and fifty years who has not 
accorded special favors to the sanctuary at Guadalupe." (See 
also Eemedios.) 

Guadalupe, Virgin of. Long before the advent of the Mex- 
ican Lady of Guadalupe, the mother-country of Spain had a 
famous image of the Virgin, still preserved in the Jeronymite 
convent at Guadalupe in Estremadura. It was discovered in 
1330 by one Giles, a cow-keeper of Caceres, and somehow it 
turned out to have been carved by St. Luke, to have been given 
to San Leandro, the Gothic uprooter of Arianism, by Gregory 
the Great, and to have been miraculously preserved during the 
six centuries of Moorish invasion. A hermitage was built on 
the spot. In 1340 Alonzo XI. raised a chapel which Juan I. in 
1389 converted into a convent subject to the Pope alone. For 
ages this was one of the richest and most frequented shrines in 
Europe. Cortes made a special cult of this image, hence the 
recurrence of the name in Mexico. His first act on his return in 
1538 was a pilgrimage to the convent, where he and his followers 
worshipped for the space of nine days, offering at the altar the 
spolia opima of their strangely achieved wealth. At present the 
convent is degraded into a barrack, but the splendid chapel and 
the image have escaped. 

Gudula, St. (Flemish, Goole), patron saint of Brussels, Her 
festival is celebrated on January 8, the anniversary of her burial. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 491 

Gudula was born about the middle of the seventh century, in 
Brabant. She was of noble parentage, and her relative St. Ger- 
trude was her sponsor and took chai-ge of her early education. 
She devoted herself from childhood to a religious life. The 
castle of her father, Count Witger, was two'miles from the little 
village of Moorsel, where there was an oratory dedicated to the 
Saviour. Thither went Gudula at cock-crow every morning to 
her devotions, taking a maid with her to carry her lantern. 

It is related that on one occasion the Evil One put out this 
lantern, but Gudula knelt by the roadway and prayed, and the 
lantern was miraculously relighted. She devoted her entire rev- 
enue to the poor, and when she died all the people followed her 
body to the grave. She was buried on the 8th of January, 712, 
according to general opinion, at the village of Hanum, near Ke- 
legham. On the morning after her burial a poplar that stood at 
the foot of her tomb burst into leaf in spite of the season. The 
body of the saint was transported successively to Mvelles, TJms, 
and Maubeuge, through fear of the Normans. It was afterwards 
laid in the oratory at Moorsel. Charlemagne built a monastery 
in honor of St. Gudula in Moorsel, but this was destroyed by the 
Normans. 

The remains of the saint were finally taken from Moorsel to 
Brussels in 978. Since 1047 a magnificent church, known as St. 
Gudula's, has perpetuated her memory, and here the saint is 
enshrined. 

In art she is represented with a lantern, which an angel is 
kindling. 

Guernica, Tree of. Close to the town of Guernica in Bis- 
cay, Spain, is the so-called tree of the Basque Liberties. For- 
merly the Lords of Biscay took their oaths on a stone bench 
placed at its foot. At present the general juntas are inaugu- 
rated here and are continued in the adjoining church of Santa 
Maria la Antigua. It is perpetuated like the Euskarian family, 
and is succeeded by its scions, the tree which is to substitute the 
present one having been planted in 1880. The present tree was 
thirty years old when, in 1811, its predecessor fell down under 
the weight of some three centuries. Several patriotic songs have 
been dedicated to the tree. Eousseau sent it his blessing, and 
Tallien saluted it in the midst of the French Convention. 

. Guingamp, Pardon of. Next to the Pardon of St. Anne of 
Auray (see Auray), this is the most notable of all the Breton 
Pardons, or festivals. It begins on the Saturday preceding the 
first Sunday in July. 

According to the local historians, its origin can be traced back 



492 CURIOSITIES OF 

to a remote antiquity. Save during the interregnum of the 
Ee volution, it has always attracted an immense crowd of pil- 
grims. But not until the sixteenth century was the image known 
as Notre-Dame de Bon Secours, " Our Lady of Good Help" (the 
object of all this .hofnage), invested with a crown by the Pope, 
thenceforth assuming a rank to which she had not previously 
been entitled. By sunrise on the morning of Saturday the nar- 
row winding streets of the old town of Gruingamp are crowded 
with pilgrims, come to perform their devotions at the shrine of 
J^otre-Dame de Bon Secours, and to take part in the evening 
procession in her honor. This is the distinctive feature of the 
day. It is held after* vespers, and is thus described by George 
M. Towle in Harper's Magazine, vol. xlii. p. 39 : 

" The church, which is brilliantly lit up, is crowded in every 
part. The service terminated, precisely at nine o'clock the bells 
begin to chime, and then to toll a monotonous peal, while most 
of the houses in the town are being illuminated, and the head 
of the procession — composed of men and women mingled to- 
gether indiscriminately, the half-wild-looking Bas-Breton every 
now and then alternating with some charming-looking demoiselle 
whose toilet is after the latest mode — is seen descending the 
flight of steps in front of the north door of the church, preceded 
by a priest bearing the cross. A troop of cavalry, stationed 
immediately opposite, salutes the sacred symbol; and for a quar- 
ter of an hour pilgrims, all with lighted tapers in their hands, 
and the men with their heads bare, continue descending the steps 
in double file. While these are passing out at the north door, 
another detachment of pilgrims, also in double file, and similarly 
provided with lighted tapers, is leaving the church by the west. 
The two detachments proceed in opposite directions — the one 
moving toward the upper, the other to the lower end of the town. 
At the expiration of the quarter of an hour just spoken of, the 
ornamental portion of the procession is seen to emerge from the 
north door of the church, consisting, first of all, of some young 
and rather pretty girls, robed entirely in white, and carrying the 
silk-embroidered banner of the Yirgin ; then more girls and ban- 
ners, followed by the members of various female religious com- 
munities, in the costumes of their order, bearing their respective 
banners ; next come several small gilt statuettes, carried on 
handsome stands, one of which represents St. Fiacre, the patron 
saint of the gardeners, and another St. Joseph, the patron saint 
of the carpenters. Then follow richly gilt baskets containing 
various relics, borne by and surrounded by priests ; a gold bust, 
with a long forked beard ; a wax figure of a dead child in white, 
her head wreathed with lilies, lying on a purple cushion covered 
with a crimson pall, and preceded and followed by banners innu- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 493 

merable* Then a number of men and boys dressed up to repre- 
sent sailors, and bearing a couple of models of men-of-war of the 
old school, and a huge gilt anchor ; then some of the youths of 
the college, accompanied by their band ; next a number of men 
with banners and large ornamental open-work lanterns ; then the 
sapeurs pompiers and their band ; and, finally, a body of priests 
in rich vestments. The two detachments of pilgrims eventually 
join themselves together, and the procession, composed by this 
time of at least ten thousand people, passes up the main street 
of the town and round the large triangular place where the 
fountain is situated, chanting all the while. Here three tall 
poles have been erected, surrounded by banners in honor of the 
Virgin, and having immense piles of fagots stacked at their 
base. While the procession is moving round this open space in 
the direction of the church, these stacks of fagots are set fire to 
one after the other, filling the air above with fiery sparks, as the 
ground is already thronged below with lighted tapers, and throw- 
ing out such intense heat in their immediate proximity as to 
cause pilgrims and spectators alike to struggle to escape from it. 
Such are the aspects of a Breton Pilgrimage or Pardon as seen 
at Guingamp." 

Guy Fa^wkes's Day. The anniversary of the discovery of 
the Gunpowder Plot on November 5, 1605, still celebrated in 
England and her colonies. The conspirators in this plot were 
all English Catholics of gentle lineage and good position who 
bloodied their delicate fingers to no end. Hence with a natural 
and pardonable injustice the entire Catholic party was held re- 
sponsible for their acts, and the 5th of E'ovember has been util- 
ized for a Protestant and anti-Catholic demonstration, borrow- 
ing many features from the celebrations on Queen Elizabeth's 
Day (q. v.). 

When James YI. of Scotland became James I. of England the 
Catholics in the latter country had cherished hopes that the 
penalties imposed against their religion by Queen Elizabeth 
would be remitted or minimized. And indeed the new monarch 
began his reign in a mild and tolerant spirit. But he found 
Parhament arrayed against him. His pecuniary necessities 
obliged him to court the good will of the Commons by putting 
afresh into execution the penal laws against papists. The most 
odious severities were revived. The fanaticism of persecution 
bred the fanaticism of retaliation. Hence the Gunpowder Plot, 
for blowing up at once the King, Lords, and Commons, originated 
by Robert Catesby, a Catholic gentleman of good family who, 
doubly an apostate, had found himself back in the Church of 
his birth after once being a Protestant convert, and had drawn 



494 



CURIOSITIES OF 



into his j^lansTliomas Winter, Guido or Guy Fawkes, and several 
others. In a secluded house in Lambeth, oaths of secrecy were 
taken, and the communion was administered by a Jesuit named 
Father Gerard, who, however, does not appear to have been taken 
into the plot. The next step was to hire a house near the build- 
ing where Parliament formerly met, with the view of blowing 
the legislature into the air by carrying a mine through the wall. 
But when they came to pierce the walls of the Parliament House 
they found the task beyond their powers, especially as all were 
gentlemen unused to manual labor. One day, while at work, 
they heard a rumbling noise over their heads. Fear seized them 
that they had been discovered. Guy Fawkes, going out to in- 




GuY Fawkes. 
(From the English Prayer Book of 1607.) 

quire, returned with the news that the disturbance had been 
caused by a coal-dealer who was moving out from a cellar he had 
rented below the House of Lords. Forthwith the conspirators 
saw their opportunity. Hiring the cellar from the outgoing 
dealer, they placed therein thirty-six barrels of gunpowder. 
These they covered up with coal and fagots of wood. By May, 
1605, the preparations were all completed. The conspirators 
separated until the time to strike had arrived. This was finally 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 42^ 

determined to be the 5th of November, when the king in person 
was to open Parliament. In some way, about which historians 
differ, the plot was discovered. At two o'clock in the morning 
of November 5, a party of soldiers under command of Sir 
Thomas Knyvett, a Westminster magistrate, visited the cellar 
and arrested Gruy Fawkes, the man who was to have fired the 
train that should explode the gunpowder, and who was at his 
post with a dark lantern in his hand. He was interrogated by 
the king and council, and shut up in the Tower. Meanwhile the 
other conspirators, all save Ti-esham, fled from London in an 
effort to reach Dunsmore Heath in Warwickshire, where other 
Catholics under Sir Edmund Higby had agreed to join them in 
an insurrection should the plot prove successful. Pursued by 
the civil and military authorities, some of them were overtaken 
at the mansion of Holbeach, on the borders of Staffordehire. 
Eesisting arrest, four, including Catesby, were slain. But seven 
others were captured here and in other places. These, with 
their accomplice Guy Fawkes, were put to the torture, tried, and 
finally executed at the west end of St. Paul's Churchyard on 
January 30 and 31, 1606. /All the hideous ceremonies attending 
the deaths of traitors were honored in the observance. 

It was in January of the same year that the British Parlia- 
ment appointed the 5th of November as " a holiday for ever in 
thankfulness to God for our deliverance and detestation of the 
Papists." A special service for this day formed part of the ritual 
of the English Book of Common Prayer until 1859, when an 
ordinance of the Queen in Council abolished it, together with 
the service for the Martyrdom of Charles I. and the Eestoration 
of Charles II. (See Charles, St.) At the opening of every 
session of Parliament even to this day the initial ceremony is 
the marching of the Yeomen of the Guards through the vaults 
under the Houses in search of gunpowder. It would be impos- 
sible, of course, to get any gunpowder into the basement. Even 
granting the possibility, it could not be discovered by merely 
strolling through the cellars. Such, however, is the British love 
for crystaHized custom that it has even been humorously con- 
jectured whether had the Gunpowder Plot succeeded it would 
have been necessary to blow up the Houses every session because 
a precedent had been established. 

Guy Fawkes's Day is now almost entirely abandoned to the 
juvenile population of England. Even so late as 1847 the author 
of the anonymous booklet " Sports, Pastimes, and Customs of 
London" complains that its old-time glorj^ has departed. 
''Originally," he says, "the burning of Guy Fawkes in effigy 
was a ceremony much in vogue, especially among the lower 
classes, but it is now confined chiefly to school-boys, and even 



4.05 CURIOSITIES OF 

with them it is not so popular as in days gone by. Formerly 
the burning of ' a good guy' was a scene of uproar perhaps un- 
known to the present day. The bonfire, for example, in Lin- 
coln's Inn Fields was conducted on a very grand scale. It was 
made at the Great Queen Street corner, immediately opposite 
Newcastle House. Fuel came all day long in carts properly 
guarded against surprise. Old people have recollected when up- 
wards of two hundred cart-loads were brought to make and feed 
this bonfire, and more than thirty ' guys' were burnt upon gibbets 
between eight and twelve o'clock at night. 

" The butchers of Clare Market, also, were accustomed to cele- 
brate this anniversary in a somewhat peculiar style ; one of their 
body, personating Guy Fawkes, being seated in a cart, with a 
prayer-book in his hand, and a priest, executioner, etc., attending, 
was drawn through the streets, as if going to the place of exe- 
cution ; while a select party, with marrow-bones and cleavers, 
led the way, and others solicited money from the inhabitants and 
spectators. The sums thus obtained were spent at night in jollity 
and carousing." 

In all parts of England it is still customary for boys to dress 
up an ef^gy of Guy Fawkes, parade it in a chair through the 
streets, and at nightfall burn it with strident enjoyment in a 
huge bonfire. The effigy's face is formed of a huge comic mask 
crowned with a paper fool's cap, it wears such cast-off clothes as 
are obtainable, in one hand it carries a dark lantern and in the 
other a bunch of matches. The procession visits successively 
the different houses in the neighborhood, reciting before each 
certain time-honored rhymes which vary with the locality. In 
London they run as follows : 

Eemember, remember 

The fifth of November, 
The Gunpowder treason and plot ; 

There is no reason 

Why the Gunpowder treason 
Should ever be forgot ! 

Numerous variations and additions are made in different parts 
of the country. Thus, in Islip, Oxfordshire, the following lines, 
as quoted by Sir Henry Ellis in his edition of Brand's " Popular 
Antiquities," are chanted : 

The fifth of November, 

Since I can remember, 

Gunpowder treason and plot : 
This is the daj^ that God did prevent, 
To blow up his king and parliament. 

A stick and a stake. 

For Victoria's sake ; 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 497 

If you won't give me one, 
I'll take two: 
The better for me, 
And the worse for you. 

The following song, according to the same authority, is used 
in some parts of the north of England : 



/Hollo, boys, hollo, boys, 

Let the bells ring ; 

Hollo, boys, hollo, boys, 

God save the queen. 

Pray to remember 
The fifth of November, 

Gunpowder treason and plot, 
When the king and his train 
Had nearly been slain, 

Therefore it shall not be forgot. 

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 

And his companions, 
Strove to blow all England up ; 
But God's mercy did prevent, 
And saved our king and his Parliament. 
Happy was the man. 

And happy was the day, 
That caught Guy, 

Going to his play. 
With a dark Ian thorn, 
And a brimstone match, 
Ready for the prime to touch. 

As I was going through the dark entry, 

I spied the devil. 

Stand back ! stand back ! 
Queen Mary's daughter. 
Put your hand in your pocket 
And give us some money, 
To kindle our bonfire. 

Huzza ! Huzza ! 

That final eleemosynary plea was never forgotten. When not 
put into metrical form, it took such prosaic shape as "Please 
remember Guy," or " Please to remember the bonfire." 

Sometimes Guy Fawkes's day is taken advantage of to parade 
the Q^gj of any unpopular personage of the day. Thus, during 
the ferment occasioned by the " Papal Aggression" in 1850 Car- 
dinal Wiseman, newly appointed Archbishop of Westminster by 
the Pope, was substituted for Guy Fawkes, and solemnly burnt 
in London amid No Popery demonstrations. In 1857 a similar 
honor was accorded to Nana Sahib, whose atrocities at Cawnpore 

32 



498 CURIOSITIES OF 

in the previous month of July had excited a cry of horror 
throughout the civilized world. The opportunity also is fre- 
quently seized by many of that numerous class in London who 
live by their wits to earn a few pence by parading through the 
streets, on the 5th of November, gigantic figures of the leading 
celebrities of the day. These are sometimes rather ingeniously 
got up, and the curiosity of the passer-by who stops to look at 
them is generally taxed with the contribution of a copper. 

In Notes and Queries, Second Series, vol. iv. p. 368, is the fol- 
lowing entry : " A very old custom prevails in the West Riding 
of Yorkshire, of preparing, against the anniversary of Gun- 
powder Plot, a kind of oatmeal gingerbread, if it may be so called, 
and of religiously partaking of the same on this day and subse- 
quently. The local name of the delicacy is Parkin, and it is 
usually seen in the form of massive loaves, substantial cakes, or 
bannocks." 

Blount in his '' Fragmenta Antiquitatis" (Beckwith, 1815, p. 
565) gives the following account of a custom observed at Don- 
caster. He says at this place on the 5th of November, yearly, 
whether it happens on a Sunday or any other day in the week, 
the town waits play for some time on the top of the church 
steeple, at the time when the congregation are coming out of the 
church from morning service, the tune of " God Save the King." 
This has been done for fourscore years at least, and very possi- 
bly ever since the 5th of November has been a festival, except 
that formerly the tune played was "Britons, strike home." The 
waits always receive from the churchwardens sixpence apiece 
for this service. 

The celebration of Guy Fawkes's Day was brought over from 
England to America by the early colonists, and still has local 
survivals in several of the original thirteen States. In New 
York, the code known as the Duke's Laws, given to the province 
in 1665, ordered that every minister should on November 5 
preach a sermon commemorative of the English deliverance from 
Guy Fawkes and his Gunpowder Plot. 

The Wew York Gazette of November 7, 1737, affords a glimpse 
of how the festival was celebrated at that time : " Saturday last, 
being the fifth of November, it was observed he-re in memory of 
that horrid and Treasonable Popish Gun-Powder Plot to blow up 
and destroy King, Lords, and Commons, and the Gentlemen of 
his Majesty's Council. The Assembly and Corporation and other 
the principal Gentlemen and Merchants of this City waited upon 
his Honor the Lieutenant-Governor at Fort George, where the 
Royal Healths were drunk, as usual, under the discharge of the 
Cannon, and at the Night the City was illuminated." All through 
the English provinces bonfires were burned, volleys were fired, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 499 

eflSgies were carried in procession, and mummers and maskers 
singing No Popery songs importuned passers-by for a gratuity. 
Giant Pope came in time to be substituted for Gruy Fawkes, and 
the 5th of November was known as Pope Day. Under this name 
it survives in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and Portsmouth, New 
Hampshire. In Newcastle, New Hampshire, it is corrupted into 
Pork Night. In other New England towns fires are still lighted 
on the 5th of November by boys who know not what they com- 
memorate. In New York and Brooklyn there is a feeble and 
divided survival of Pope Day sports in the bonfires kindled on 
election night, and in the bedraggled parades of begging child 
maskers on Thanksgiving Day. 

Gyst-Ale, or Guising. An annual festival formerly cele- 
brated in Lancashire in the spring, probably about Lady Day, 
when manorial rents were due. It has been surmised that the 
term is an allusion to the attendant gyst or hire for the privilege 
of selhng ale and other refreshments during the festivals held 
on the payment of the rents of the manor. But a plausible 
etymon derives the word gyst from geste, " an act," " a sport," 
while guising is but another form of disguising, — i.e., masquer- 
ading. Cf. guisards, the Scotch for mummers. 

These gyst-ales, or guisings, once ranked among the principal 
festivals of Lancashire, and large sums of money were subscribed 
by all ranks of society in order that they might be celebrated 
with becoming splendor. The lord of the manor, the vicar of 
the parish, the farmer, and the operative severally announced 
the sums they intended to give, and when the treasurer ex- 
claimed, " A largesse," the crowd demanded, " From whom ?" and 
then due proclamation was made of the sum subscribed. The 
real amount, however, was seldom named, but it was announced 
that " Lord Johnson," or some other equally distinguished per- 
son, had contributed "a portion of ten thousand pounds" towards 
the expenses of the feast. 

After the subscription lists were closed, an immense garland 
was prepared, which contained abundance of every flower in 
season, interspersed with a profusion of evergreens and ribbons 
of every shade and pattern. The framework of this garland 
was made of wood, to which hooks were affixed, and on these 
was suspended a large collection of watches, jewels, and silver 
articles borrowed from the richer residents in the town. On the 
day of the gyst this garland was borne through the principal 
streets and thoroughfares, attended by crowds of townspeople 
dressed in their best attire. These were formed into a procession 
by a master of the ceremonies, locally termed the King. Another 
principal attendant was the Fool, dressed in a grotesque cap, a 



500 CURIOSITIES OF 

hideous grinning mask, a long tail hanging behind him, and a 
bell with which he commanded attention when announcements 
were to be made. In an early period of these guisings the fool 
was usually mounted on a hobby-horse, and indulged in grotesque 
pranks as he passed along : hence we obtaimed the term " hob- 
riding," and more recently the proverbial expression of " riding 
one's hobby to death." (Harland and Wilkinson: Legends 
and Traditions of Lancashire^ 1873, p. 86.) 



H. 

Hachette, Joan. (Fr. Jeanne Hachette.') A French heroine 
who distinguished herself at the siege of Beauvais, France, in 
1472, and in whose honor an annual festival is held in that city 
on July 6. Charles the Bold of Burgundy, revolting against 
Louis XL, had thrown himself against the town. The adult 
male j^opulation and many of the women and children gathered 
upon the ramparts and with muskets and stones beat off the 
assault. Most noticeable among the women was Joan Laisne, 
afterwards nicknamed Hachette, from the axe which she effect- 
ually wielded in the struggle. A Burgundian sought to plant 
his standard in a breach. Joan killed him, and, capturing the 
flag, bore it in triumph to the chapel of St. Angadreme, patroness 
of Beauvais. Charles the Bold, surprised by so stout a resistance, 
raised the siege, and a few days later Louis XL entered the town 
in triumph. 

That monarch decreed that to honor the valor of Beauvais an 
annual procession should be held on the festival of St. Angadreme, 
wherein the women should take precedence of the men. The 
flag which Joan had seized has always been brought out of the 
church to take part in this procession, and little by little her 
fame has dominated that of even the patroness of the city, so 
that the festival is known as the Fete Jeanne Hachette. On July 
6, 1851, a bronze statue of the heroine was unveiled in the public 
square, amid great solemnities. 

On the eve of the festival a salvo of artillery announces the 
coming event. In the morning mass is celebrated at the cathe- 
dral, and at its close the Eosiere named for the occasion is 
crowned by the mayor. In the afternoon at three o'clock occurs 
the procession. It consists of two wings, the civil and the reli- 
gious, the former starting from the city hall, the latter from the 
cathedral. Both meet in front of the statue of Joan Hachette. 
Here the body of young girls dressed in white and crowned with 
flowers, who follow the clergy in the religious wing, are intrusted 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 501 

with the duty of firing off, turn and turn about, the salute of one 
hundred guns which forms part of the traditional usage. 

Halloween or All Hallo'w Even (also known locally as 
Nutcrack Night and Snapapple Night). The name given 
to the night of October 31, as the eve or vigil of All Saints' or 
All Hallows Day (November 1). Of all nights in the year this 
is the one upon which supernatural influences most prevail. The 
spirits of the dead wander abroad, together with witches, devils, 
and mischief-making elves, and in some cases the spirits of living 
persons have the temporary power to leave their bodies and join 
the ghostly crew. Children born on this day preserve through 
their youth the power to converse with these airy visitants. But 
often the latter reveal themselves to ordinary folk, to advise or 
warn them. Hence it is the night of all nights for divination. 
Impartially weighed against the others, it is the very best time 
of the whole year for discovering just what sort of husband or 
wife one is to be blessed withal. 

Halloween is a curious recrudescence of classic mythology, 
Druidic beliefs, and Christian superstitions. On November 1 the 
Eomans had a feast to Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, 
and it was then that the stores laid up in the summer for use in 
the winter were opened. Hence the appropriateness of the use 
of nuts and apples at, this time. November 1 or thereabouts 
was also the great autumn festival to the sun which the Druids 
celebrated in thanksgiving for their harvest. Now, the Druids 
believed in transmigration, and taught that on the eve of this 
festival Saman, the Lord of Death, called together the wicked 
souls that within the last twelve months had been condemned to 
occupy the bodies of animals. But Saman might be propitiated 
through the priests by means of gifts and incantations to miti- 
gate his sentences. 

November was also one of the quaternary periods when the 
Druids lighted their bonfires in honor of Baal. (See May-Day.) 
The custom was kept up in many portions of Great Britain 
until a comparatively recent period. Wales was especially 
tenacious of it, and the observances which marked the Novem- 
ber fire may be held to have descended directly from the Druids. 

Each family used to make its own fire, and as it was dying out 
each member would throw a white stone into it, the stones being 
marked for future identification. Then all said their prayers and 
went to bed, and in the morning they tried to find all the stones 
again. If any stone was missing it betokened that the owner 
of it would die within a year. Some superstitions are pretty 
and picturesque and attractive ; this was one of the many which 
were cruel as well as picturesque. It would take but a slight 



502 CURIOSITIES OF 

accident to cause a fright that might be actually dangerous to a 
superstitious person, and it would not be hard for an enemy of 
such a person to cause that fright by stealing his stone from the 
fire. 

These fires in Wales were commonly followed by feasting on 
nuts, apples, and parsnips, and by the games of which something 
will be said presently. Sometimes nuts were thrown into the 
fires, in the belief that they indicated prosperity to those who 
threw them if they burned well and the reverse if they simply 
smouldered and turned black. There were fires also in Scotland, 
and there, in some parts of the country at least, the ashes were 
carefully raked into a circle and just within this the stones were 
placed, one for each person present. If in the morning any of 
these appeared to have been disturbed, it betokened death. Some- 
times it was the custom to make large torches by binding com- 
bustible material to the tops of poles and to bear them blazing 
about the village, lighting new ones as often as the old were 
burned out. Fires were also used at different times and places 
on All Saints' Night, which is the eve of All Souls' Bay, and on 
All Souls' Day itself, the 2d of November. In these cases the 
fires were regarded as typical of immortality, and were thought 
to be efficacious, as an outward and visible sign at least, for 
lighting souls from purgatory. 

But if anything were wanting to prove the Druidic origin of 
many of the Halloween observances it would be found in the 
fact that in some parts of Ireland October 31 was known as 
Oidhche Shamhna, or Yigil of Saman. Yallancey's " Collectanea 
de Eebus Hibernicis" tells us that on this night the peasants in 
Ireland assemble with sticks and clubs, "going from house to 
house, collecting money, breadcake, butter, cheese, eggs, etc., for 




the feast, repeating verses in honor of the solemnity, demanding 
preparations for the festival in the name of St. Columb Kill, de- 
siring them to lay a^ide the fatted calf and to bring forth the black 
sheep. The good women are employed in making the griddle- 
cake and candles ; these last are sent from house to house in the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



503 



vicinity, and are lighted up on the (Saman) next day, before 
which they pray, or are supposed to pray, for the departed soul 
of the donor. Every house abounds in the best viands they can 
afford : apples and nuts are devoured in abundance ; the nut- 
shells are burnt, and from the ashes many strange things are 
foretold ; cabbages are torn up by the root ; hemp-seed is sown 
by the maidens, and they believe that if they look back they will 
see the apparition of the man intended for their future spouse; 
they hang a smock before the fire, on the close of the feast, and 
sit up all night, concealed in a corner of the room, convinced that 
his apparition will come down 
the chimney and turn the 
smock ; they throw a ball of 
yarn out of the window, and 
wind it on the reel within, con- 
vinced that if they repeat the 
Pater Noster backwards, and 
look at the ball of yarn without, 
they will then also see his sith 
or apparition ; they dip for ap- 
ples in a tub of water, and en- 
deavor to bring one up in the 
mouth; they suspend a cord 
with a cross-stick, with apples 
at one point, and candles lighted 
at the other, and endeavor to 
catch the apple, while it is in a circular motion, in the mouth." 
Yallancey sagely concludes that these superstitious practices, the 
remains of Druidism, will never be eradicated while the name of 
Saman is permitted to remain. 

In the island of Lewis the name Shamhna, or Saman, seems 
to have been corrupted to Shony. Martin talks with consider- 
able disgust of "an ancient custom here to sacrifice to a sea- 
god, called Shony, at Hallowtide." The inhabitants, it seems, 
used to gather to the church of St. Mulvay, at night, each 
family bringing provisions, and also furnishing a peck of malt, 
which was brewed into ale. One who was chosen for the pur- 
pose waded into the sea up to his middle and poured out a 
cup of ale, calHng on Shony to favor the people through the 
coming year. " At his return to land they all went to church, 
where there was a candle burning upon the altar: and then 
standing silent for a little time, one of them gave a signal, at 
which the candle was put out, and immediately all of them went 
to the fields, where they fell a-drinking their ale, and spent the 
remainder of the night in dancing and singing." He adds, " The 
ministers in Lewis told me they spent several years before they 




504 CURIOSITIES OF 

could persuade the vulgar natives to abandon this ridiculous 
piece of superstition." 

If in the word Saman the Irish preserve a distinct evidence 
of Druidism, on the other hand in the drink called " Lambs- 
wool" they equally confess the Eoman intermixture. Lambs- 
wool is made by bruising roasted apples and mixing them with 
ale or sometimes with milk. The Gentleman's Magazine for May, 
1784, says " this is a constant ingredient at a merrymaking on 
Holy Eve." Now, Yallancey makes a shrewd etymological guess 
when he says, " The first day of November was dedicated to tbe 
angel presiding over fruits, seeds, etc., and was therefore named 
La Mas Ilbhal,— that is, the day of the apple fruit,— and being 
pronounced Lamasool, the English have corrupted the name to 
Lambs-wool." The "angel presiding over fruits, seeds, etc.," 
was obviously a reminiscence of Pomona. 

It may be interesting to record a few of the Halloween 
customs which are now practically extinct. 

A curious little book called "The Festyvall" (1511) mentions 
a custom obsolete even at that time. " We rede," it says, " in 
olde tyme good people wolde on All halowen daye bake brade 
and dele it for all crysten soules." Yet bread or cake in one 
form or other was locally associated with Halloween until a far 
more recent period. Indeed, even at the present moment it is 
said that the women of Eipon, Yorkshire, on this night make a 
cake for every one in the family, so that it is popularly known 
as Cake Night. In Warwickshire and elsewhere seed-cake was 
an accompaniment of Halloween, as indicating the end of wheat 
seedtime. This custom seems to have been general in the time 
of Thomas Tusser : 

"Wife, some time this weeke, if the wefher hold cleere, 
An end of wheat-sowing we make for this yeare. 
Kemember you, therefore, though I do it not, 
The Seed-Cake, the Pasties, and Furmentie-pot. 

{Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, 1580.) 

Aubrey says that in his time in Shropshire and elsewhere 
there was set upon the board at All Hallows Eve a high heap of 
Soul-cakes, about the bigness of twopenny cakes, lying one upon 
another, like the picture of the shew bread in the old Bibles. 
Every visitor was expected to take one. " There is an old rhyme 
or saying," he adds,—" A Soule-cake, a Soule-cake, have mercy 
on all Christen soules for a Soule-cake." 

Toilet in a note in his Yariorum Shakespeare to the "Two 
Gentlemen of Yerona" (Act ii. Sc. 2) says, " It is worth remark- 
ing that on All Saints' Day the poor people in Staffordshire, and 
perhaps in other country places, go from parish to parish a-soul- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 505 

ing, as they call it, — i.e.^ begging and puling (or singing small, as 
Bailey's Dictionary explains puling) for Soul Cakes, or any good 
thing to make them^merry. This custom is mentioned by Peck, 
and seems a remnant of Popish superstition to pray for departed 
souls, particularly those of friends." 

Another Popish practice was summarily stopped by the Eefor- 
mation. This was the custom of ringing bells at this season for 
all Christian souls. 

In the draught of a letter which King Henry YIII. was to 
send to Cranmer "against superstitious practices" (Burnet: 
Hist. Eef., 1683), " the Yigil and ringing of bells all the night 
long upon Allhallow Day at night" are directed to be abolished; 
and the said Vigil to have no watching or ringing. And in the 
appendix to Strype's "Annals of the Eeformation" the following 
injunction, made early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, occurs : 
" That the superfluous ringing of bels, and the superstitious ring- 
ing of bells at Allhallowntide, and at Al Souls' Day, with the two 
nights next before and after, be prohibited." 

In the Churchwardens' Accounts of the parish of Heybridge, 
near Maiden, in Essex, under a.d. 1517 are the following items : 

" Imprimis, payed for frankyncense agense Hollowmasse, 01. 

J. Id. 

" Item, payed to Andrew Elyott, of Maldon, for newe mend- 
ynge of the third bell knappell agenste Hallowmasse, 01. 
Is. Sd. 

" Item, payed to John Gidney, of Maldon, for a new bell rope 
agenste Hallowmasse, 01. Os. Sd" 

Among articles to be inquired of within the archdeaconry of 
Yorke by the churchwardens and sworn men, between the years 
1630 and 1640, one is, " Whether there be any within your parish 
or chappelr}^ that use to ring bells superstitiously upon any abro- 
gated holiday, or the eves thereof." 

Everybody is familiar with Burns's famous poem " Halloween," 
which gives a panoramic insight into the customs of Old Scotia 
on this night of mirth and mystery. Perhaps no influence has 
done more than this to preserve and spread these observances 
among English-speaking folk. , All of them are based on imme- 
morial custom. 

But what was once a ceremony of belief has now become a 
thing of sport, of welcome sport in a day of such serious thought 
and work and sense of responsibility that any excuse for sport 
should be laid hold of; so that now its observances are all a 
jest which young people play upon themselves, not in the least 
believing in the consequences, only half hoping there may be 
something in it, and saying to themselves that stranger things 
have happened. 



506 CURIOSITIES OF 

So they practise matrimonial vaticinations of all sorts. Most 
common of all and most intimately associated with the season is 
the roasting of nuts. These are placed together on the bar of 
the grate side by side in pairs, and named for supposed lovers. 
If a nut burns quietly and brightly it indicates sincerity of affec- 
tion. If it cracks and jumps it tells of unfaithfulness, while if 
the nuts burn together the youth and maid so indicated will be 
married. ^__ 

These glowing nuts are emblems true 
Of what in human life we view. 
The ill-matched couple fret and fume, 
And thus in strife themselves consume, 
Or from each other wildly start, 
And with a noise forever part. 
But see the happy, happy pair, 
Of genuine love and truth sincere : 
"With natural fondness while they burn, 
Still to each other kindly turn, 
And as the vital sparks decay. 
Together gently sink away, 
Till, life's fierce ordeal being past, 
Their mingled ashes rest at last. 

(Charles Graydon: Poems, Dublin, 1801.) 

Or perchance two hazel-nuts are thrown into the hot coals by a 
maiden. She secretly gives a lover's name to each. If one of 
the nuts bursts, then that lover is unfaithful; but if it burns 
with a steady glow until it becomes ashes, she knows that her 
lover's faith is true. Sometimes it happens, but not often, that 
both nuts will burn steadily, and then is the maiden's heart sore 
perplexed. 

Burns' 8 stanza on this subject is as pretty as any in his poem : 

Jean slips in twa, wi'.tentie e'e ; 

Wha 'twas she wadna tell ; 
But this is Jock and this is me, 

She says in to hersel ; 
He bleez'd owre her, an' she owre him, 

As they wad never m air part ; 
Till, fuff ! he started up the lum, 

An' Jean had e'en a sair heart 
To see't that night. 

Gay has also some pretty lines about a girl who proved her 
lover in this way : 

Two hazel-nuts I threw into the flame. 
And to each nut I gave a sweetheart's name ; 
This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed, 
That in a flame of brightest color blazed ; 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



507 



As blazed the nut, so may thy passion grow, 
For 'twas thy nut that did so brightly glow ! 

Next to nuts in importance come apples. 

Endless are the methods of extracting from these fruit either 
fun or prophecy. What greater fun can there be, when you are 
at the right age and in the right mood, than ducking for apples? 
These apples are set afloat in a tub of water. They must be 
caught with the teeth, and the hands must not be used at all. 
The surest way to get an apple, it is said, is to force it to the 
bottom of the tub, and there hold it close while it is caught by 
the teeth. Any other way is hard to manage and uncertain 




of result. Another trick is to suspend a stick by a string tied 
in the middle. An apple is placed at one end and a lighted 
candle at the other. The stick is then whirled around, and 
the purpose is to catch the apple with the teeth and not to 
catch the candle. 

And as to prophecy, any maiden may find out at least the 
first letter of the name of her future husband by peeling a 
pippin, taking the paring b}^ one end in her fingers, swinging it 
three times about her head, and then letting it drop. The 
pippin-paring thus dropped will surely fall in the shape of 
the initial of his name, as she will readily see, though the rest 
gf the company, not having quite so discerning eyes as hers, 
may not. 

It is said to help among the witches wonderfully to repeat 
these North of England lines while swinging the paring about 
the head : 

I pare this pippin round and round again, 
My sweetheart's name to flourish on the plain : 
I lling the unbroken paring o'er my head. 
My sweetheart's letter on the ground is read. 

Two cut apple-seeds stuck ^" "he lids of the eyes help one im- 



508 ' CURIOSITIES OF 

mensely on Halloween in determining which of two lovers is 
the more desirable. All that is necessary is to name the apple- 
seeds after the lovers, respectively, and that which drops from 
the eye first points to him whose love is not adhesive. The 
advantage of this spell is that a body may help the Fates along, 
if they seem undecided, by winking. 

The hemp-seed divination is known both to the United States 
and to Britain. The experimenter must go out alone and unper- 
ceived with a handful of hemp-seed, which he must sow on the 
ground, dragging after him anything that may be convenient by 
way of a hari-ow. He must then say, "Hemp-seed, I sow thee, 
hemp-seed, I sow thee : and him or her that is to be my true 
love come after me and pou thee." If he then looks over his 
left shoulder, he ought to see a likeness of his future sweetheart 
pulling the seed which he has sowed. If he sees nobody, he 
may conclude that he is never to marry, or that there is some 
mistake in the experiment. A trial very like this may be made 
on Midsummer Eve. 

If a girl would see her husband by an Irish method, here it is. 
Let her throw a ball of yarn out of the window, holding the 
end of the thread, and then rewind it, at the same time saying 
the Pater Noster backward. Watching the ball of yarn with- 
out, she will see the desired apparition. Burns shows that the 
Scottish form of this test was more solemn. He says nothing 
of the Pater Foster, but he says that the yarn must be blue, and 
that the experimenter must go out to a lime-kiln and throw the 
ball therein ; then, when the rewinding is nearly finished, some- 
thing will hold the thread. To the question, " Wha bauds ?" the 
name of the future husband will be returned in answer. Of 
course it is understood that this or any of the other methods of 
divination of this night may be used with equal effect by a man 
or a woman. 

Wet the sleeve of a shirt and hang it on a chair before the 
fire, as if to dry. Then go to bed, but do not go to sleep, only 
watch. At about midnight you may confidently expect to see 
your spouse that is to be enter the room and turn the drying 
garment. If you do not see him, it must be because you alloW 
yourself to drop asleep, if only for a minute, and so miss him 
when he comes. Burns adds to the difficulty of this trial, and 
therefore to its probable success if carried out rightly, by re- 
quiring that the shirt shall be wet in a spring or rivulet running 
towards the south at a point where three lairds' lands meet. It 
is the left sleeve that must be wet. This, also, is a test which 
may be tried equally well at midsummer. 

]!^umerous are the other ways in which the beatific vision of 
the future spouse may be conjured up. Lovers set three dishes 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 509 

on the floor, one empty, one with clean water, and one wath foul 
water, and then approaching blindfolded dip their hands at ran- 
dom : they who dip in the empty one shall remain unmarried, 
and they who dip in the foul shall get one that is widowed, and 
they who dip in the clean shall be joined to a virgin. Or all 
alone they eat an apple before a mirror, feeling creepy as they 
look over the shoulder in the glass for the face of the sweetheart 
or spouse to be ; or they go down the cellar stairs with a candle 
in one hand and a mirror in the other, for the same expected 
vision. Or they winnow in the dark three measures of nothing, 
simply with empty mimicry of winnowing, whereupon the face 
is to appear ; or they pull the dead stalk from the garden, and 
judge by the earth clinging to the roots whether or not the lover 
has gold and gear ; or they drop the yolk of an Qgg in water, and 
take heed of the indications concerning a lover's trade and tools, 
be they pen or be they spade. 

But the mysterious rites of Halloween are not complete when 
the merrymaking is done and " good-night" is said. Each young 
lady, in order to complete the charms of the night, on reaching 
her home must pluck two roses with long stems, naming one for 
herself and the other for her lover. She must then go directly 
to her sleeping-room without speaking to any one, and, kneeling 
beside her bed, must twine together the stems of the two roses 
and repeat the Ibllowing lines, gazing meanwhile intently upon 
the lover's rose : 

Twine, twine, and intertwine, 

Let my love be wholly mine. 

If his heart be kind and true, 

Deeper grow his rose's hue. 

If her swain be faithful, the color of the rose will grow darker 
and more intense. 

The moment has at last arrived for the final and, to many, the 
most convincing and satisfactory test as to the identity of the 
maid's lover if she is still in doubt. A glass of water, in which 
a small sliver of wood has been placed, must stand on a small 
table by her bedside. In the night she will dream of falling 
from a bridge into a river; but scarcely will she touch the water 
when her future husband, whose face she can plainly see, will 
jump in and rescue her. 

A noteworthy circumstance in the Scottish observance of the 
night which has not been largely followed elsewhere is the ex- 
traordinary and varied use to which cabbage, or kail, is put in 
the traditions and merrymaking of the occasion. Kail brose, or 
cabbage broth, is inseparable from the Scotch Hallow^een feast. 
Mischievous boys push the pith from the stalk, fill the cavity with 
tow which they set on fire, and then through the keyholes of 



510 CURIOSITIES OF 

houses of folk who have given them offence blow darts of flame 
a 3^ard in length. If on Halloween a farmer's or crofter's kail- 
yard still contains ungathered cabbages, the boys and girls of 
the neighborhood descend upon it en masse, and the entire crop is 
harvested in five minutes' time and thumped against the owner's 
doors, which rattle as though pounded by a thunderous tempest. 
In some shires at the "pulling of the kail" the youths of both 
sexes go into the kail-yard blindfolded and in pairs, holding each 
other's hands. They each pull the first " runt" or stalk they find, 
not being permitted to make selection. All thus gathered are 
carried back to the house for inspection. The straightness or 
crookedness, leanness or fatness, and other pecuharities of the 
stalks are indicative of the general appearance of their future 
husbands or wives, while the taste of the pith, whether sweet, 
bitter, or vapid, forecasts their disposition and character. But 
the most singular of all beliefs in Scotland regarding the cabbage- 
stalk is confined to the minds of very young children, though it 
is so peculiarly a tender delusion that the guidwife holds it in 
respect to her dying day. The idea is universal among the little 
folks in the Land o' Cakes that where a new brother or sister 
appears in the household it has come, through fairy aid, from 
the roots of the cabbage-stalk. So that when all the bairns of 
Scotland are singing, — 

This is the nicht o' Halloween, 
When a' the witchie micht be seen ; 
Some o' them black, some o' them green, 
Some o' them like a turkey bean, — 

however mad and merry all their games, they never lay their 
joy-weary heads upon their pillows until with their own hands 
they have laid generous piles of " kail runts" against door-sill 
and window-ledge, so that the gracious and kindly fairies of 
blessed Halloween night shall set free at least one baby soul 
from the roots and mould, and the household shall not fall of 
welcoming another tiny bairn within the coming year. 

The following extract is taken from the Guardian (November 
11, 1874) : " Halloween was duly celebrated at Balmoral Castle. 
Preparations had been made days beforehand, and farmers and 
others for miles around were present. When darkness set in, 
the celebration began, and her majesty and the Princess Beatrice, 
each bearing a large torch, drove, out in an open phaeton. A 
procession formed of the tenants and servants on the estates 
followed, all carrying huge torches lighted. They walked through 
the grounds and round the castle, and the scene as the procession 
moved onwards was very weird and striking. When it had ar- 
rived in front of the castle, an immense bonfire, composed of old 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 611 

boxes, packing cases, and other materials, stored up during the 
year for the occasion, was set fire to. When the flames were 
at their brightest, a figure dressed as a hobgoblin appeared on 
the scene, drawing a car surrounded by a number of fairies car- 
rying long spears, the car containing the effigy of a witch. A 
circle having been formed by the torch-bearers, the presiding elf 
tossed the figure of the witch into the fire, where it was speedily 
consumed. This cremation over, reels were begun, and were 
danced with great vigor to the stirring strains of Willie Eoss, 
her majesty's piper." 

A custom that prevails in Ireland and Scotland, and that is 
religiously followed in the United States by the people of those 
countries, has to do with the character of the evening meal. A 
dish, largely made up of mashed parsnips and potatoes and 
chopped onions, is served as the principal item on the bill of fare. 
It is called " call-cannon," though why it is thus designated only 
these people understand. A deep bowl filled to the brim with 
the food is placed in the middle of the table. Somewhere in the 
bowl is a gold ring, and in the centre is a deep well filled with 
melted butter. Portions are distributed to each person, and the 
one who finds the ring is certain to be married within a year, 
unless already married, in which event good luck will follow the 
finder. 

A loaf-cake is often made and in it are placed a ring and a 
key. The former signifies marriage, the latter a journey, and 
the finder of either must accept the inevitable. 

(Jn the United States it is to be regretted that the spirit of 
rowdyism has in a measure superseded the kindly old customs. 
In towns and villages gangs of hoodlums throng the streets, 
ringing the door-bells or wrenching the handles from their 
sockets, and taking gates from off their hinges. In Washington 
the boys carry flour in a bag. Care is taken to have the web of 
the bags so worn that a slight blow will release a generous supply 
of the white powder. The bags are long and narrow, and are 
handled as if they were slung-shots. These the boys use upon 
one another as well as upon non-belligerent passers-by. 

Handsel Monday. The first Monday in the year. This is 
a great holiday among the peasantry and the children generally 
in Scotland, being especially devoted to the giving and receiving 
of presents, or, in the Scotch vocabulary, handsels. The young 
visit their seniors in expectation of some remembrance, and 
postmen, scavengers, and newspaper- carriers look for the equiv- 
alent of what in England are known as Christmas-boxes. In the 
remoter rural regions Auld Handsel Monday — i.e., Handsel Mon- 
day, Old Style, or the first Monday after the 12th of January — 



512 CURIOSITIES OF 

is the day usually held. On this occasion it was the ancient 
custom for farmers to ti^eat all their servants to a liberal break- 
fast of roast and boiled, with ale, whiskey, and cake, after which 
the guests spent the day in visiting among their friends. It was 
also moving day in old Scotland, and the date when new engage- 
ments were entered into with servants and farm-hands. 

Hangman's Stone. There are numerous large boulders in 
different parts of England and the United States which have 
received the name of " Hangman's Stone," in consequence of a 
legend which attaches much the same story to each. There were 
two fields in the parish of Fore mark, Derbyshire, called the 
Great and the Little Hangman's Stone, from the boulders which 
they contained. In the former there was a stone five or six feet 
high, with an indentation running across the top of it. This 
peculiar mark was explained by the tradition that once upon a 
time a thief, having stolen a sheep, placed his booty on thie top 
of the stone while he rested, but it slipped off, and strangled the 
man with the rope which tied the sheep to his back, the indenta- 
tion being made by the friction of the rope passing back and 
forth in the struggles of the dying man to extricate himself 

At a picturesque angle in the road between SheflSeld and 
Barnsby, and about three miles south of the latter place, there 
is a toll-bar called " Hangman's Stone Bar." Attached to this 
title is the usual legend of a sheep-stealer being strangled by the 
kicking animal which he had slung across his shoulders, and 
which pulled him backward as he tried to climb over the stone 
wall with his spoil. Here no one particular stone is marked with 
evidence of the struggle, but the Jehu of the now extinct Barnsby 
mail always used to tell the story to any inquiring passenger 
who happened to be one of the " five at top" on his quaint four- 
in-hand. 

At the end of Lamber Moor, on the roadside between Haver- 
ford West and Little Haven, in the county of Pembroke, there 
is a stone about four feet high, called "Hang Davy Stone," con- 
nected with which is the same legend, only in this case the 
unfortunate's name has survived. There is also, about five miles 
from Sidmouth, on the road to Colyton, on the right-hand side, 
near Bovey House, another boulder which bears this ominous 
appellation. 

In Westcote's " View of Devonshire in 1630" mention is made 
of the fact that the parish of Tatchcomb is separated from 
Combmartin by a long row of boundary stones, one of which is 
distinguished as the "Hangman's Stone," for the same reason- 
that has been given before. And only a few j^ears ago there was 
still to be seen, near the boundarj^ of Littlebury parish in Essex, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 613 

another large stone which bore this same name and history. 
This was subsequently removed to the private garden of a Mr. 
Gibson of SufFron Walden. 

North Essex abounds in these strange boulders, and quantities 
of them may be seen along the roadside. The general impression 
is that they have been disinterred in by-gone times and left near 
the spot where they were discovered. 

Hangman's Stones occur also on the road between Brighton 
and New Haven ; and the most famous instance of all is the one 
recorded in Potter's '-' Charwood," where the death of the deer- 
stealer John of Oxley is rehearsed in verse, under the title of 
" The Legend of the Hangman's Stone :" 

One shaft he drew on his well-tried yew, 

And a gallant hart lay dead ; 
He tied its legs, and he hoisted his prize, 

And he toiled over Lubcloud brow — 
He reached the tall stone standing out and alone, 

Standing there as it standeth now ; 
With his back to the stone, he rested his load. 

And he chuckled with glee to think 
That the rest of his way on the down-hill lay. 

And his wife would have spied the strong drink. 



A swineherd was passing o'er great Ive's Head, 

When he noticed a motionless man ; 
He shouted in vain, — no reply could he gain, — 

So down to the gray stone he ran. 
All was clear : there was Oxley on one side the stone. 

On the other the down-hanging deer; 
The burden had slipped, and his neck it had nipped ; 

He was hanged by his prize : all was clear. 

It is a curious fact that a tale almost identical with the tradi- 
tion attached to the Hangman's Stones is related of a pig-stealer 
and a stile, in Craven. " Swine Harry" is the name of a field 
on the side of Pinnow, a hill in Tothersdale, in Craven. It is 
said that a native of the valley was once crossing the field at the 
dead of night with a pig which he had stolen from a neighboring 
farm-yard. He led the obstinate animal bj^ a rope which was 
tied to its leg and noosed at the other end, which he held in his 
hand. On coming to a ladder-stile, being a very stout man, and 
wishing to have both hands at liberty, but not liking to release 
the pig, he transferred the rope from his hands to his neck. But 
when he reached the top step, his feet slipped, the pig pulled 
hard on the other side, the noose tightened, and the next morn- 
ing he was found dead. 

The fatal character which seems to distinguish these boulders 

33 



514 CURIOSITIES OF 

is not satisfactorily accounted for. It may be that they are 
remnants of the devil's missiles ; for he is known to have utilized 
such large boulders in many of his encounters v^ith the early 
inhabitants. In the German popular tales the devil is frequently 
made to step into the place of the giants. Like them, he has 
his abode in rocks, and hurls stones in which the impression of 
his fingers or other members is often to be seen ; and, according 
to tradition, compacts are made with him for the building of 
churches. 

Hara-Kiri. (Japanese, from haray "the belly," and Mri, 
"cutting," "cut.") The ofiicial suicide by disembowelling for- 
merly practised in Japan by daimios and members of the mili- 
tary class, either voluntarily, to avoid surviving some personal 
or family disgrace, or by instigation of the Mikado as a punish- 
ment for crime. In the latter case the act was performed vrith 
punctilious ceremonial in the presence of witnesses. The moment 
the suicide had ripped open his abdomen with his dirk his head 
was struck off by his kaishaku, or second, usually a kinsman, or 
at least a friend of his own rank. Japanese gentlemen were 
trained to look upon the hara-kiri as an honorable expiation of 
crime or blotting out of obloquy. If the offence had been hei- 
nous, and such as might otherwise have involved the ruin of the 
whole family, the Mikado in his clemency usually confiscated 
only half the property and returned the other half to the heir; 
if the offence w^ere trivial, the property v^as inherited intact by 
the heir and the family was exonerated. In all cases where 
the criminal disembowelled himself of his own accord without 
condemnation and without investigation, inasmuch as he was 
no longer able to defend himself, the offence was considered as 
non-proven, and the property was not confiscated. 

It was customary for the Mikado, when hara-kiri had been 
determined upon, and the culprit happened to be of very high 
rank, to send him a jewelled sword wherewith to operate upon 
himself This custom was put to a severe test on one occasion 
when the Mikado had been grievously hurt by the words ^nd 
conduct of a high court ofiicial. The man was an old and very 
valued servant of the crown, but his crime was unpardonable. 
Next day, therefore, an officer brought him the fatal sword, a 
magnificent weapon, with a blade inlaid with gold and a handle 
incrusted with diamonds, together with a sympathetic intima- 
tion that his early death would be regarded as a benefit to the 
empire in general and to the Mikado in particular. The culprit 
received the sword with all proper respect, but as soon as the 
emissary had departed, the wily Japanese — in whose mind Euro- 
pean habits of thought had evidently taken firm root — walked 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 515 

down to the quay, went on board a mail steamer that was bound 
for Havre, and upon reaching Paris incontinently sold his sword 
of honor for six thousand pounds. 

Hara-kiri is often misspelled hari-kari and harri-karri, and is 
alternatively known as the Happy Despatch. It was established 
in Japan in the days of the Ashi-Kaga dynasty (a.d. 1336- 
1568). Japanese authorities estimate that at one time no less 
than fifteen hundred of these suicides occurred annually. The 
custom was abolished in 1868. 

The only Europeans who ever witnessed an execution by hara- 
kiri were A. B. Mitford and six fellow-diplomats, who were all 
invited to be, present at the execution of Taki Zenzaburo in 
1867. He was an officer of the Mikado who had given the order 
to fire upon the foreign settlements at Hiogo during the civil war 
against the Tycoon and had thereby almost brought down the 
vengeance of Europe upon the Mikado. The ceremony took 
place at half-past ten o'clock at night in the temple of Seikukuji, 
at Hiogo. 

" It was an imposing scene," says Mr. Mitford, — " a large hall 
with a high roof supported by dark pillars of wood. From the 
ceiling hung a profusion of those huge gilt lamps and ornaments 
peculiar to Buddhist temples. In front of the high altar, where 
the floor, covered with beautiful white mats, is raised some three 
or four inches from the ground, was laid a rug of scarlet felt. 
Tall candles placed at regular intervals gave out a dim mysterious 
light, just sufficient to let all the proceedings be seen. The seven 
Japanese took their places on the left of the raised floor, the 
seven foreigners on the right. 'No other person was present. 

"After an interval of a few minutes of anxious suspense, Taki 
Zenzaburo, a stalwart man thirty-two years of age, with a noble 
air, w^alked into the hall attired in his dress of ceremony, with 
the peculiar hempen cloth wings which are worn on great occa- 
sions. He was accompanied by a kaishaku and three officers, 
who wore the zimbaori, or war surcoat with gold-tissue facings. 

" With the kaishaku on his left hand, Taki Zenzaburo advanced 
slowly towards the Japanese witnesses, and the two bowed before 
them, then drawing near to the foreigners they saluted us in the 
same way, perhaps even with more deference : in each case the 
salutation was ceremoniously returned. Slowly, and with great 
dignity, the condemned man mounted onto the raised floor, 
prostrated himself before the high altar twice, and seated him- 
self on the felt carpet with his back to the high altar, the kai- 
shaku crouching on his left-hand side. One of the three attend- 
ant officers then came forward bearing a stand of the kind used 
in temples for offerings, on which, wrapped in paper, lay the 
wakizashi, the short sword or dirk of the Japanese, nine inches 



516 CURIOSITIES OF 

and a half in length, with a point and an edge as sharp as a 
razor's. This he handed, prostrating himself, to the condemned 
man, who received it reverently, raising it to his head with both 
hands, and placed it in front of himself. 

"After another profound obeisance, Taki Zenzaburo, in a voice 
which betrayed just so much emotion and hesitation as might 
be expected from a man who is making a painful confession, 
but Avith no sign of fear either in his face or manner, spoke as 
follows : 

" ' I, and I alone, unwarrantably gave the order to fire on the 
foreigners at Kobe, and again as they tried to escape. For this 
crime I disembowel myself, and I beg you who are present to do 
me the honor of witnessing the act.' 

" Bowing once more, the speaker allowed his upper garments 
to slip down to his girdle, and remained naked to the waist. 
Carefully, according to custom, he tucked his sleeves under his 
knees to prevent himself from falling backward, for a noble 
Japanese gentleman should die falling forward. Deliberately, 
with a steady hand, he took the dirk that lay before him ; he 
looked at it wistfully, almost affectionately ; for a moment he 
seemed to collect his thoughts for the last time, and then, stab- 
bing himself below the waist on the left-hand side, he drew it 
slowty across to the right side, and, turning the dirk in the 
wound, gave a slight cut upward. During the sickeningly painful 
operation he never moved a muscle of his face. When he drew 
out the dirk he leaned forward and stretched out his neck ; an 
expression of pain for the first time crossed his face, but he 
uttered no sound. At that moment the kaishaku, who, still 
crouching by his side, had been keenly watching his every move- 
ment, sprang to his feet, poised his sword for a second in the 
air; there was a flash, a heavy, ugly thud, a crashing fall; with 
one blow the head had been severed from the body. 

" A dead silence followed, broken only by the hideous noise 
of the blood gushing out of the inert heap before us, which but 
a moment before had been a brave and chivalrous man. It 
was horrible. 

" The kaishaku made a low bow, wiped his sword, and retired 
from the raised floor ; and the stained dirk was solemnly borne 
away, a bloody proof of the execution. 

"The two representatives of the Mikado then left their places, 
and, crossing over to where the foreign witnesses sat, called us 
to witness that the sentence of death upon Taki Zenzaburo had 
been faithfully carried out. The ceremony being at an end, we 
left the temple." 

Mr. Mitford tells some stories of extraordinary heroism dis- 
played in the hara-kiri which had been related to him. The 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 517 

case of a young fellow only twenty years old deserves mention 
as a marvellous instance of determination. Not content with 
giving himself the one necessary cut, he slashed himself thrice 
horizontally and twice vertically. Then he stabbed himself in 
the throat until the dirk protruded on the other side, with its 
sharp edge to the front ; setting his teeth in one supreme 
effort, he drove the knife forward with both hands through his 
throat, and fell dead. 

When the Tycoon, beaten on every side, had fled ignominiously 
to Yeddo, a member of his second council went to him and said, 
" Sir, the only way for you now to retrieve the honor of the 
family of Tokugawa is to disembowel yourself; and to prove 
to you that I am sincere and disinterested in what I say, I am 
here ready to disembowel myself with you." The Tycoon flew 
into a great rage, saying that he would listen to no such non- 
sense, and left the room. His faithful retainer, to prove his hon- 
esty, retired to another part of the castle and solemnly performed 
the hara-kiri. 

One of the great scenes in the play of " Chiushingura," the 
most popular of Japanese dramas, is that which represents the 
hara-kiri of Yenya Hanguwan, chief of the Forty-Seven Eonins, 
after the defeat of his followers. 

Harvest Customs. From early times the ingathering of 
the harvest has afforded occasion for revelry and thanksgiving. 
When the Jews inhabited Palestine the festival of Pentecost 
embraced a thanksgiving for a bountiful harvest ; but, as the 
wheat is not gathered in Northern Europe or America at the 
time of Pentecost, flowers take the place of the first-fruits in 
the synagogues.* The Eomans had their Cerealia, or feasts in 
honor of Ceres. The Druids celebrated their harvest festival on 
November 1, the Japanese and Chinese each celebrate one at 
the close of their year. The American Thanksgiving is an ac- 
knowledgment of the blessings of the year in general and the 
bounties of the harvest in particular. In pre -Reformation times 
in England Lammas-Day was marked by the presentation of a 
loaf made of new wheat in the churches by every member of 
the congregation. Afterwards the feast of Ingathering or Har- 
vest-Home, known in Scotland as the Kern, was a peculiarly 
secular method of celebrating the close of the harvest. This 
still has its local survivals, although they are fast passing away 
before the modern innovation of a general harvest festival for 
the whole parish, to which all the farmers are expected to con- 
tribute, and which their laborers may freely attend. This festival 
is commenced with a special service in the village church, beauti- 
fully decorated for the occasion with fruit and flowers, followed 



518 CURIOSITIES OF 

by a dinner in a tent or in some building sufficiently large, and 
continued with rural sports, and sometimes includes a tea- 
drinking for the women. 

Nevertheless, as Canon Atkinson says, we cannot even yet 
use the past tense in speaking of the old harvest-home. " In 
the northern part of Northumberland," writes Henderson in his 
" Folk-Lore of North England" (1879), " the festival takes place 
at the close of the reaping, not the ingathering. When the 
sickle is laid down and the last sheaf of corn set on end, it is 
said that they have ' got the kern.' The reapers announce the 
fact by loud shouting, and an image crowned with wheat-ears 
and dressed in a white frock and colored ribbons is hoisted on a 
pole by the tallest and strongest men of the party. All circle 
round this ' kern-baby' or harvest-queen and proceed to the barn, 
where they set the image on high, and proceed to do justice to 
the harvest-supper." In some places "this nodding sheaf, the 
symbol of the god," is quite small, fashioned with much care and 
neatness, and plaited with wonderful skill ; in others it is large 
and cumbersome, taking a strong man's strength to bear it. 

In Scotland it is called "the maiden," and is dressed like a 
doll. It is preserved in the farm-house above the chimney-piece. 
The youngest girl in the harvest-field is supposed to have the 
privilege of cutting " the maiden." Its head is formed of ears 
of oats ; a broad blue ribbon is tied in a bow round the neck, 
and a skirt of paper completes the costume of " the maiden." In 
the northeast of Scotland the last sheaf is known as the " clyack," 
or " cailleach" (old woman), and is dressed up and made to look 
as much like an old woman as possible. It has a white cap, a 
dress, a little shawl over the shoulders, fastened with a sprig of 
heather, an apron turned up to form a pockety which is stuffed 
with bread and cheese, and a sickle is stuck in the string of the 
apron at the back. At the harvest feast the cailleach is placed 
at the head of the table, the company drink to her, and in the 
evening the lads dance with her. 

The manner of escorting the last load to the barn varied in 
different places. In many parts of England it was borne in 
a wagon known as the hock-cart. A pipe and tabor went 
merrily sounding in front, and the reapers, male and female, 
tripped around in a hand-in-hand ring, shouting and singing. 
Herrick's description shows how ancient is this custom : 

Come forth, my Lord, to see the cart 
Drest up with all the country art. 
The horses, mares and frisking fillies 
Clad all in linen white as lilies. 
-The harvest swains and wenches bound 
For joy, to see the hock-cart crown 'd. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 519 

About the cart heare how the rout 

Of rural younglings raise the shout ; 

Pressing before, some coming after, 

Those with a shout, and these with laughter. 

Some blesse the cart ; some kisse the sheaves ; 

Some prank them up with oaken leaves : 

Some crosse the fill-horse ; some with great 

Devotion stroak the home-borne wheat ; 

"While other rusticks, lesse attent 

To prayers than to merryment, 

Eun after with their breeches rent. 

In some provinces it was a favorite practical joke to lay an 
ambuscade along the road, and from the vantage-point of some 
tree or hill to drench the hock-party with water. 

An old song with many variants still survives at the bearing 
home of the last load. Its usual form runs as follows : 

Harvest home ! harvest home ! 
We've ploughed, we've sowed, 
We've reaped, we've mowed, 
We've brought home every load. 
Hip, hip, hip, harvest-home ! 

Here is a glimpse of an East Anglian custom : 
"The sun is setting behind the old windmill as we cross the 
field of stubble ; from a group of harvesters comes a woman 
who, with a low courtesy, asks us for ' largess.' As we pass 
along we hear merry shouts and cheering, and presently round 
the corner of the road comes a fine team of horses, mounted by 
two lads dressed in the garb of women, while the wagon is filled 
with the last load of corn, and merry youths and maidens ride 
above it. The wagon stops, and the riders give us three cheers, 
and then on they go to the village green amidst much laughter 
and bright songs." 

The custom is known locally as " Hallering Largess," and has 
been described as a certain rhythmic chant, rendered with action 
and gesture, and followed by a certain number of shouts, in 
return for gifts. When they have received the offering they 
shout thrice the words " Halloo, largess," which may be a cor- 
ruption of a la largesse. The ritual appears to be as follows. 
The laborers gather in front of the house, and form a ring by 
joining hands. They bow their heads very low towards the 
centre of the circle and give utterance to a low deep mutter, 
saying, " Hoo-Hoo-Hoo ;" then they jerk their heads backward 
and utter a shrill shriek of "Ah! Ah!" repeated several times. 
The Lord of the Largess, the leader of the band, then cries, 
" Holla, largess," which is echoed by the company, and thus the 
performance ends, a very interesting survival of old usages. 



520 CURIOSITIES OF 

In Herefordshire a final handful of grain was left uncut. But 
it was tied up and erected under the name of a mare^ and the 
reapers then, one after another, threw their sickles at it, to cut 
it down. The successful individual called out, " I have her !" 
" What have you ?" cried the rest. " A mare, a mar^, a mare !" 
he replied. "What will you do with her?" was then asked. 
" We'll send her to John Snooks," or whatever other name, re- 
ferring to some neighboring farmer who had not yet got all his 
grain cut down. 

This piece of rustic pleasantry was called " Crying the Mare." 
It is very curious to learn that there used to be a similar prac- 
tice in so remote a district as the Isle of Skye. A farmer hav- 
ing got his harvest completed, the last cut handful was sent, 
under the name of Goabbir Bhacagh (" the Cripple Goat"), to the 
next farmer who was still at work upon his crops, it being of 
course necessary for the bearer to take some care that, on deliv- 
ery, he should be able instantly to take to his heels and escape 
the punishment otherwise sure to befall him. 

" In the southeastern part of Shropshire," says the Eev. C. H. 
Hartshorne in his " Salopia Antiqua," p. 498, " the ceremony is 
performed with a slight variation. The last few stalks of the 
wheat are left standing ; all the reapers throw their sickles, and 
he who cuts it off cries, ' I have her, I have her, I have her !' on 
which the rustic mirth begins ; and it is practised in a manner 
very similar in Devonshire. The latest farmer in the neighbor- 
hood, whose reapers therefore cannot send her to any other per- 
son, is said to keep her all the winter. This rural ceremony, 
which is fast wearing away, evidently refers to the time when, 
our country lying all open in common fields, and the corn conse- 
quently exposed to the depredations of the wild mares, the season 
at which it was secured from their ravages was a time of rejoicing, 
and of exulting over a tardier neighbor." 

Mr. Bray describes the same custom as practised in Devon- 
shire, and the chief peculiarity in that instance is that the last 
handful of the standing grain is called the Nack. On this being 
cut, the reapers assemble round it, calling at the top of their 
voices, " Arnack, arnack, arnack ! we have'n, we have'n, we 
have'n," and the firkin is then handed round ; after which the 
party goes home dancing and shouting. 

Clarke in his Travels (1812) gives this account of a harvest- 
home festival in Cambridge : 

" At the Hawkie, as it is called, or Harvest-Home, I have seen 
a clown dressed in woman's clothes^ having his face painted, his 
head decorated with ears of corn, and bearing about with him 
other emblems of Ceres, carried in a wagon, with great pomp 
and loud shouts, through the streets, the horses being covered 



\ 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 521 

with white sheets ; and, when I inquired the meaning of the 
ceremony, was answered by the people that ' they were drawing 
the Harvest Queen.' " (Vol. ii. p. 229.) 

At harvest suppers in Dumfriesshire and Lincolnshire "the 
old sow," or," Paiky," used to make her appearance. This curi- 
ous animal was nothing more nor less than two men dressed up 
in sacks to personate the visiting quadruped. The head was 
filled with cuttings from a furze-bush. The animal pranced 
around before the supper, pricking every one it approached. "I 
used to be very much afraid of it when I was a child," says a cor- 
respondent of JSFotes and Queries, Eighth Series, ix. 128. " That 
was a part of the harvest supper I never could like." 

In some parts of Scotland a similar figure seems to have been 
called " Auld Glenae," as witness the lines in a poem on " Harvest- 
Home" published in Blackwood's Magazine for June, 1821 : 

But tumbling, rolling, sprawling on his way. 

Comes in the straw-clad masker, " Auld Glenae ;" 

A lengthen'd pole adorns his better paw, 

Well swathed with ribbons, and well wrapp'd with straw. 

Like shaggy bear he heaves his limbs along, 

And drives, and leaps, and bustles through the throng ; 

Tries every art the younger folks to " scar," 

And only joins the reel, the sport to mar; 

Trips up the dancer in his figure pace, 

And thrusts his stubble presence in each face ; 

With Lizy foots the droll duett away, 

And capers to the tune of " Auld Glenae," 

Then winds his bunchy arms her waist about. 

And bears aloft the farmer's daughter out ; 

" And wha can this be now ?" each damsel cries ; 

*' What can he want wi' Lizy?" each replies. 

" Aweel," rejoins a third, " she's nae great prize !" 

A rural celebration akin to the Enghsh, and known as the 
Fete of the Big Sheaf, survived until recently in Canada and 
closed the harvest season among the habitans in the neighbor- 
hood of Bay St. Paul. The last sheaf, made large, was put on 
the last cart-load of grain as an emblem of abundance ; the lads 
and lasses, decorated with ears of grain, walked on each side of 
the load, and sang some of their national songs on the way to 
the house. 

" According to the usual ceremony," says the author of an 
article on " The Canadian Habitant" in Harpefs Monthly, vol. 
Ixvii. p. 389, " the master of the house sits in a large arm-chair 
at the head of the room, and awaits with a joyful and contented 
air the arrival of his people. These soon come trooping in, led 
by the eldest son, who carries in one hand a fine sheaf of wheat 
all decorated with ribbons, and in the other hand a decanter and 



522 CURIOSITIES OF 

a glass. He advances to the master of the house, gives him the 
sheaf, wishes him as good a harvest every year of his life, and 
pours him out a glass of brandy. The old gentleman thanks 
him, and drinks off the glass. Then the son goes round the 
room and serves the company ; after which they pass to the 
next room for supper, composed of mutton, milk, and pancakes 
with maple sugar. After supper the decanter and glass go their 
rounds again, and then the young man who presented the sheaf 
asks his father to sing a song. Songs, dances, and other amuse- 
ments close the festival. 

" As this pretty ceremony fell into disuse some years ago, the 
priest of one of the parishes on the south shore of the St. Law- 
rence took it under his own patronage, and made it a Church 
festival by carrying the Big Sheaf into the choir of the church 
and saying mass over it. But even this duller rite is now sel- 
dom witnessed : the farmers instead pay the priest to say a mass 
as thanks for the harvest." 

Hassan and Hussein. Two Imams or saints of Persia, the 
sons of Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed, and of Ali, his 
bosom friend and successor. Their tragic deaths are commemo- 
rated, on the tenth day of the Mussulman month of Mouharem, 
in Persia and in all cities where a Persian colony exists, by a 
religious ceremony the mystic rites and sanguinary ferocity of 
which are almost without a parallel. 

When the office of Caliph became vacant through the assassi- 
nation of Ali in 660, Hassan as the nearest heir was murdered 
by Yezzid, son of Muhavijeh, who usurped the throne, Hussein 
fled to Medina, and twenty years later led a revolt of the Kyuffeh 
tribes. At the hour of need, however, his allies forsook him, and 
Hussein, with only forty foot and thirty horse, was forced to meet 
Yezzid at the head of four thousand men. After a terrific con- 
test the little band was cut to pieces, Hussein falling last of all, 
pierced with thirty-two wounds. 

His head was severed from his body and conveyed to Yezzid, 
by whom it was received with savage exultation. " It was ob- 
served that a light streamed upward from the lifeless head and 
extended towards the heavens, white doves hovering round." 
The body was buried at Kerbela, which city has ever since been 
regarded with the utmost veneration and reverence by all Per- 
sians and Shiahs, large numbers of whom annually visit the 
mausoleum of the martyred saint. Kerbela has been and still 
is the favorite burial-ground of the Persians, their remains being 
transported thither from ali parts of the world. 

A sort of Passion Play is the leading feature of the festival 
of Hassan and Hussein. At Constantinople, where there is a 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 623 

large Persian colony, this is performed at night in a large square 
surrounded by houses and shops, planted with trees and crowded 
with people. Edwin C. De Leon, who was American consul to 
Constantinople for many years, thus describes the ceremony in 
The Epoch, New York : 

" Shortly after we were seated we heard wild shouts and 
clamors outside, and presently saw a band of wild-looking men 
bearing aloft flaming maschaUahs. They entered in marching 
time, and announced the approach of a numerous procession of 
' the Faithful.' In they poured, preceded by the Persian priests, 
lugubriously chanting with nasal melody a kind of funeral song, 
reciting the tragic death of Hassan and Hussein, with maledic- 
tions on their assassin, Yezzid, doomed to an immortality of 
infamy. Then suddenly appeared at the termination of the 
chant a ghostly-looking crew of men, clad in long white robes, 
with uncovered heads and naked swords in their hands. These 
men numbered many hundreds, and were termed Nazirs, — a 
Persian name signifying those consecrated to God, being dedi- 
cated by their parents from infancy to observe the ceremonial 
and the fasts commemorating the deaths of Hassan and Hussein. 
They flourished their naked swords, clashed them wildly together, 
and occasionally turned the points on themselves or their com- 
panions, gashing heads, faces, and breasts until the blood flow^ed 
and discolored their white robes. They then dragged each other 
by the hand, passed round and round, hoarsely reciting mourning 
hymns, with wild invocations of the names of the martyrs, Hus- 
sein and Hassan. These men looked really like demons under 
the red glare of the torches borne by their companions, who to 
the number of several thousands passed in after the singers, 
often wiping the bloody brows of the fanatics. 

" The horror of this fearful scene was magnified by the dull, 
thumping sound made by the self-flagellations of another band 
of fanatics who accompanied the swordsmen. These men be- 
labored their broad backs with scourges made of iron chains, 
the blows resounding with a sickening sound. The secretaries 
told us that the backs of these men, from the annual repetition 
of this scourging, and from their daily habit of carrying heavy 
burdens, as hamals or porters, were actually more like iron than 
flesh. 

" After the Nazirs came a typical procession of the flight of 
the martyrs' families, with the tents, the banners and household 
goods, and even the children perched upon horses which formed 
part of the show. Wild wailings of ' Oh, Hassan ! Oh, Hus- 
sein !' accompanied these, as though the incidents commemorated 
had occurred not six hundred years but six hours ago. 

" One of the most curious and at the same time one of the 



524 CURIOSITIES OF 

most repulsive features of the spectacle was the appearance in 
the procession, with the fanaticar Nazirs, of a large school of 
boys, of from ten to fourteen years of age, some of whom gashed 
themselves with knives and were thus prepared for fanaticism. 
Then the fanatical assemblage withdrew through the arch of the 
gate, but distant shouts and wild waihng from without warned 
us that the performance was not yet quite at an end. 

" For more than two hours this wild work went on, until the 
final round of the exhausted Nazirs was made, when they stopped 
just in front of the Ambassador's loge and the priests pronounced 
a prayer, first for the Shah of Persia, next for the Sultan, and 
lastly for the Ambassador. After this the procession drifted out 
to the outer gate, and passed away under the still stars." 

See also " Letters from Turkey," by Mrs. Max Miiller (1897), 
most of which had previously appeared in Longmans' Magazine, 
'' The Tenth of Mouharem," by Fuad ^Qj^ in London Society^ and 
Matthew Arnold's essay " A Persian Passion Play." 

Hatred, Our Lady of. (Fr. Notre-Dame de la Haine.) The 
name popularly given to a church in Treguier, Brittany. Sou- 
vestre in his " Derniers Bretons," vol. i. p. 92, tells us that hither 
come at even-tide young people tired of the surveillance of their 
elders, old men envious of the prosperity of their neighbors, 
wives chafing under the despotism of their husbands, each pray- 
ing for the death of the object of their hate. Three Aves, de- 
voutly repeated, will bring about this death within the twelve- 
month. Similarly Laisnel de la Salle tells us (" Croyances et 
Legendes du Centre de la France," 1875, i. 332) that there exists 
in the neighborhood of Argent, in the department of Cher, a 
spring consecrated to St. Mauvais (" St. Wicked"), near to which 
wretches come and pray who wish the death of an enemy, of a 
rival in love, of a relation standing between them and an inheri- 
tance, etc. The Basques recommend their enemies to St. Sequaire 
in order to have them dried up. These are all undoubtedly sur- 
vivals under other forms of pagan superstitions. They recall 
the various Hindoo deities who are always ready to assist their 
devotees each time they have an evil passion to gratify. 

Heart-Burial. In popular parlance, in poetry, and even in 
philosophy, the human heart has ever been deemed the seat of 
affection, of passion, of courage, and of conscience, — even of life 
itself. Small wonder, therefore, that it has been considered as a 
votive gift peculiarly sacred. And this feeling has led to many 
instances of the burial of the heart apart from the place where 
the ashes of the body might repose. 

The very name of Eichard Coeur de Lion, or Lion-Heart, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 525 

embodies this traditionary feeling. It is only meet, therefore, 
that his heart should have been looked upon as being the most 
important portion of his physical self. Our sense of appropriate- 
ness is gratified by the historical anecdote that when he fell 
beneath Gourdon's arrow at the siege of Chalus the gallant 
heart which, in its greatness and mercy, inspired him to forgive 
and even to reward the luckless archer was, after his death, pre- 
served in a casket . in the treasury of that splendid cathedral 
which William the Conqueror built at Eouen. 

History and song have alike made us familiar with the last 
wish of Robert Bruce, the heroic King of Scotland, when, after 
two years of peace and contemplation, he died in the north of 
Cardross. He desired that in part fulfilment of a vow he had 
made to march to Jerusalem, a purpose which the incessant war 
with England bafiled,.his heart should be laid in the church of 
the Holy Sepulchre, and on his death-bed he besought his old 
friend and faithful brother soldier, the good Sir James Douglas, 
to undertake that which was then a most arduous journey, and 
be the bearer of the relic. 

It is a matter of history how Douglas departed on this errand 
with a train of knights, and, choosing to land on the Spanish 
coast, heard that Alfonso of Leon and Castile was at war with 
Osman, the Moorish King of Granada. In the true spirit of the 
age, he could not resist the temptation of striking a blow for the 
Christian faith, and so joined the Spaniards. He led their van 
upon the plain of Theba, near the Andalusian frontier. In a 
silver casket at his neck he bore the heart of Bruce, which rashly 
and repeatedly he cast before him amid the Moors, crying, — 

" Now pass on as ye were wont, and Douglas, as of old, will 
follow thee or die." 

And there he fell, together with Sir William Sinclair of Eos- 
Ijm, Sir Eobert and Sir Walter Logan of Eestalrig, and others. 
Bruce's heart, instead of being taken to Jerusalem, was brought 
home by Sir Simon of Lee, and deposited in Melrose Abbey. 

On October 5, 1318, was killed near Dundalk, Ireland, Edward, 
brother to King Eobert Bruce. In 1613 another Lord Edward 
Bruce was killed in a duel and his body buried at Bergen, in 
Holland, where he died. A family tradition averred that his 
heart had been brought back to Scotland and interred in a cer- 
tain churchyard. In 1806 a search for the relic was undertaken. 
Two flat stones curiously fastened together with iron were dis- 
interred, and out of curiosity separated. In a cslyHj between 
them was found a heart-shaped silver case with the engraved 
arms of Lord Edward. Opening this, a heart was found within, 
embalmed in a brownish liquid. 

Of all the treasured hearts of the heroic or illustrious dead, 



526 CURIOSITIES OF 

none perhaps ever underwent so many marvellous adventures as 
that of James, Marquis of Montrose, who was executed by the 
Scottish Puritans in 1650. His body was interred like that of a 
common criminal by the side of a road leading to Edinburgh. 
His niece, the Lady Napier, had it disinterred long enough to 
take therefrom the heart, which she enclosed in a steel box and 
sent to the second Duke of Montrose, who was then an exile. 
But it was lost on the way, and not till years afterwards was it 
discovered in the collection of a Flemish virtuoso. Eestored to 
the E'apiers, it was taken to India by a member of the family, 
was stolen by a Madrassa chief, who deemed it a powerful amulet 
and wore it suspended from a string around his neck, was once 
more regained by its owner, and was finally and irretrievably 
lost by her in France during the troublous times of the Eevolu- 
tion. 

The last ceremonial burial of a heart in England was that of 
Paul Whitehead, in 1775. In his youth he had been secretary 
to the infamous Monks of Medmenham Club. It is interesting 
to know that Whitehead's old age was respectable, and that he 
was esteemed as a benevolent and exemplary old gentleman. 
His heart was buried with military honors on Lord Despencer's 
place in a mausoleum built out of funds left for the purpose 
by that George Bubb Dodington, Lord Melcombe, whose " Me- 
moirs" afford one of the most wonderful of all pictures of English 
society. 

The heart was not only a symbol of honor but also of dishonor 
in England. Formerly the executioner of a traitor was required 
to remove the body from the gallows before life was extinct and 
pluck out the heart, exhibiting it to the people with the words 
" Here is the heart of a traitor." Anthony a Wood reports that 
the severed head of Sir Kenelm Ligby opened its ghastly lips 
and answered, " Thou Hest !" Lord Bacon reports that two or 
three persons were reported to have spoken two or three words 
under similar circumstances. 

Heart-burial was as frequent on the Continent as in England. 
The body of Louis IX. after his death at Carthage in 1270 is 
related to have been boiled in wine and water in order to preserve 
it for transportation, and it was then shipped by Charles of Anjou 
(I.) to Sicily. Here the flesh and viscera were deposited in the 
Benedictine abbey of Monreale, near Palermo. The heart and 
the bones remained, by desire of the soldiers, in the camp. Later, 
his son Philip (le Hardi) having carried them, and those of his 
brother Tristan, into Italy, they were brought to Paris in 1271. 
On March 21 of that year the bones, reduced to ashes, were 
deposited temporarily in Notre-Dame, whence they were pres- 
ently borne in state to the Benedictine abbey of St. Denis, and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 527 

at each spot by the way where the bearers paused, seven in 
number, Philip subsequently caused a cross to be raised. 

Charles of Anjou dying at Foggia in 1285, his heart was sent to 
Angers, while his body was entombed in San,Gennaro, at IS'aples. 
His viscera remained in the Duomo at Foggia. 

Philip III. (le Hardi) died of pestilence, at Perpignan, October 
5, 1285. His flesh was buried at Narbonne. His bones were 
transferred to St. Denis. His heart was given by Philip TV. (le 
Bel) to the Dominicans of Paris. 

In Austria since the thirteenth century every dead Hapsburg 
has had his or her heart removed and buried apart from the 
body. In the Capuchin chapel on the Neumarkt, Vienna, placed 
in a vault beneath the ground, there are one hundred and thir- 
teen coflins, containing all that remains of the royal Hapsburgs 
who have ruled over the destinies of Austria, and there are one 
hundred and fifty-two vases of crystal mounted in gold, each 
containing the heart of one of these rulers and of others whose 
bodies rest elsewhere. 

When the body of the Emperor J^apoleon was prepared for 
burial at St. Helena in May, 1821, the heart was removed by a 
I medical officer, who kept it all night in his own room and under 
I his own eye in a wineglass. The noise of the crystal breaking 
aroused him, not from sleep, but rather from a waking doze, and 
he started forward to see the heart in the clutches of a huge 
brown rat, which was dragging it across the floor to a hole. One 
story runs that he rescued it, but there is a gruesome tradition 
that it had been so gnawed and bitten as to be unrecognizable, 
and that the doctor was fain to substitute the heart of a sheep, 
which he soldered up in a silver urn filled with spirits and placed 
in the coffin. 

It is a strange thought that the heart of a sheep, proverbially 
one of the most timid of animals, should be handed down to pos- 
terity as that of one of the most ruthless and most indomitable 
human beings who ever lived ! 

In 1894 the heart of Louis XVII., the unfortunate Dauphin 
who died a victim of the cruelty of Simon the Cobbler, was 
handed over with much ceremony to Don Carlos, the Pretender 
to the French throne. For years the heart was in possession of 
M. Edouard Dumont, who inherited it from his mother, who in 
her turn received it from M. G-abriel Pelletin, the son of the 
doctor who performed the autopsy on the body of the royal lad. 
The difi'erent possessors of the relic, which had an eventful his- 
tory, had made various attempts to hand it over to the Bourbon 
family, but circumstances had always frustrated their efl'orts 
until 1894, when the relic was at last intrusted to Don Carlos. 
The heart, enclosed in a glass case ornamented with fleurs-de-lis, 



528 CURIOSITIES OF 

was handed by M. Dumont to the Comte de Mialle, who received 
it on bended knee and swore that he would send it to the " King" 
Don Carlos. This vow he fulfilled through the agency of M. 
Pascal and the Comte de Marichalar, who conveyed it direct to 
Don Carlos at Venice. The latter placed it in the chapel of the 
palace of Frohsdorf. 

In 1895 the heart of the patriot Kosciusko was formally pre- 
sented to the Polish Museum in Eapperschwyll, on Lake Zurich, 
in Switzerland. This museum is unique, and it is in many ways 
one of the most interesting of all the depositories of patriotic 
relics. Founded by Count Stanislas Plater, an exile from the 
country which he loved, it stands to-day as an eloquent protest 
against an historical iniquity. 

The hero's body lies buried at Cracow ; his heart was handed 
over to the friend of his declining years, M. de Zeltner, and later 
passed, a revered heirloom, into the noble house of Morosini, on 
the occasion of the marriage of Kosciusko's goddaughter, Mile, 
de Zeltner, to Count Morosini. It was then placed for safe-keep- 
ing in the chapel in Yezio, near Lugano. The heirs of Count 
Morosini recognized that the relic could find no fitter resting- 
place than the Eapperschwyll Museum. 

A great ceremony greeted the occasion. Delegates from the 
Poles of Galicia, including the President and municipal author- 
ities of Cracow, also Polish delegates from Posen, Prussia, and 
from the United States, were present. Eulogies of the patriot 
were delivered by Polish orators, and the whole affair went off 
in a blaze of glory. 

Helena, St. The first wife of Constantius, one of the col- 
leagues of the Emperor Maximin, and the mother of Constan- 
tine the Great. Her festival is celebrated on the reputed date 
of her death, August 18 (328). Little is known with any his- 
torical certainty of the details of her life. Traditions vary. One 
account makes her the daughter of a British prince named Coel 
(the mythical original of the King Cole of the nursery ballad). 
The local mythology of Treves represents her as of a patrician 
family in that city, and adds that after her marriage she pre- 
sented to the church her magnificent house, which was turned 
into the present cathedral. Indeed, she is associated with almost 
everything else that is striking or splendid in the city of Treves. 
The imperial palace was built by her ; the villa at Euren was her 
country-seat, and children playing by the fountain of the Eoman 
villa have seen her seated beneath the waters, wearing a golden 
crown. The monument of the Secundini at Igel was erected to 
commemorate her marriage. In the city library is still preserved 
the Codex Aureus^ a superbly bound and illuminated manuscript 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 529 

of the Gospels, which was presented to the abbey of St. Maximin 
by Ada, the sister of Charlemagne, but in the legend this is the 
work of Helena's pious and skilful fingers. She it was who pre- 
sented to the cathedral the holy coat without seam, which has of 
late years played so prominent a part in Prussian politics. 

There is a better founded story that she was the daughter of 
an innkeeper, either in Gaul or in Bithynia. In any case she was 
probably of humble parentage, and not at first admitted to the 
status of a full wife of the noble young soldier Oonstantius, 
though there is no doubt from the fact of her subsequent divorce, 
when her husband was raised to the purple in 292 and married 
to Maximin's step-daughter Theodora, that she did eventually 
become so. perhaps upon the birth of her only son, the future 
Emperor, in 274. Nothing further is known of her till her son's 
succession in 306 to the Empire, when it is probable that she 
was invested with all the dignity befitting the Emperor's mother. 
At all events, there is the direct evidence of coins still extant to 
support the statement of Eusebius that she received the title 
of Augusta from Constan tine, together with other honors. The 
same historian says that she was converted to Christianity by 
her son. In about the year 326, when nearly eighty years of 
age, she undertook her famous pilgrimage to Palestine and Jeru- 
salem, which did so much to revive men's interest in and rever- 
ence for these sacred localities and their remains and associa- 
tions. (See Cross, Discovery of the ; Loretto, Holy House of ; 
Sepulchre of Christ.) Her death probably took place some- 
where on the return journey. Her body was brought with great 
pomp to Constantinople, and was buried there with splendor in 
the church of the Holy Apostles, lately erected in his new cap- 
ital by Constantine. This is one legend. By some it is sup- 
posed that she died near Eome and was buried there. Among 
her relics that have survived are a head at Treves, some bones in 
the Vatican, and others at Lisbon, and at Altrelle, near Eheims. 

Her memory was perpetuated in the names of two cities, 
Helenopolis and Helenopontus. Eventually, in 1164, she re- 
ceived the honor of canonization by Pope Alexander III., in 
consideration of the many miracles attributed to her. 

In Yorkshire, England, St. Helen's Day is celebrated on May 
2, possibly because that is the eve of the Invention of the Cross. 
It is alternatively known as Eowan-Tree Day, because of the 
custom for some member of every household to go out in search 
of a rowan-tree, from which he gathers a supply of branches. 
Eeturning by a different route from that by which he left home, 
he sticks the twigs over every door of the house, where they are 
scrupulously left until they fall out of themselves. " A piece is 
also always borne about by many in their pockets or purses, as 

84 



630 CURIOSITIES OF 

a prophylactic against witching. Not so very long since, either, 
the farmers used to have whip-stocks of rowan-tree wood, — 
rowan-tree gads they were called, — and it was held that, thus 
supplied, they were safe against having their draught fixed or 
their horses made restive by a witch. If ever a di^aught came 
to a stand-still, — there being in such cases no rowan-tree gad in 
the driver's hands, of course, — then the nearest witch wood-tree 
was resorted to, and a stick cut to flog the horses on with, to the 
discomfiture of the malevolent witch who had caused the stop- 
page." (Atkinson : Cleveland Glossary, p. 417.) 

Henry of Bavaria, St. (the Emperor Henry II. of Germany, 
972-1024), patron of Bavaria. His festival is July 15, the day 
after the anniversary of his death. 

A splendid benefactor of the Papacy, at the time when it had 
reached one of its greatest crises through the rival claims of 
Popes and Antipopes, he confirmed the extensive donations of 
the sovereignty of Eome and the exarchate of Eavenna made 
to it by his predecessors, Pepin, Charlemagne, and Otho I. The 
diploma was delivered on the occasion of Henry's triumphal 
visit to Eome in 1014, when he was crowned Emperor by Pope 
Benedict VIII. He had declared for Benedict in opposition to 
the Antipope, Gregory YI. For the protection of Christendom, 
and especially of the Holy See, he returned to Italy in 1022 and 
led an army against the combined power of the Saracens and 
Greeks, whom he drove out of the country. His health, always 
feeble, now rapidly declined, and he died July 14, 1024. 

He had reigned twenty-two years from his election and ten 
years and five months from his coronation at Eome. He was 
buried with great pomp in the cathedral at Barnbeig, in Ba- 
varia, which he had himself built and dedicated to St. Peter. 
At Bamberg likewise he had founded a rich episcopal see, 
which was placed under the immediate jurisdiction of the Pope, 
and to which he left by will all his treasures and his magnificent 
allodial possessions. So great a num ber of miracles were reported 
at his shrine that he was canonized by Eugenius III. in 1152. 

His wife, St. Cunegunde, who was canonized later, is also one 
of the patrons of Bavaria. The imperial couple lived in per- 
petual chastity, to which they had bound themselves by a vow. 
It happened that the Empress was falsely accused of inconti- 
nency, but she cleared herself by an oath and by the ordeal 
of walking barefoot over twelve red-hot ploughshares without 
injury. Her husband severely condemned himself for having 
lent an ear to her accusers, and in his last illness recommended 
her to her relations, declaring that he left her an untouched 
virgin. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 531 

In 1499-1513 was erected the highly ornate sarcophagus of 
SS. Henry and Cunegunde in the nave of the Bamberg Cathe- 
dral, Tilman Eiemenschneider being the sculptor. Effigies of 
the royal couple repose on the top, and scenes from their lives 
are sculptured in relief on the sides of the monument. Their 
skulls are preserved in the treasury of the cathedral. 

Herring, Procession of the. (Fr. La Procession du Hareng.) 
A curious ceremony which in the sixteenth century took place 
in the church of St. Eemi, at Kheims. On the Wednesday of 
Holy Week, after the tenebrse had been chanted, all the clergy 
of the cathedral went to perform the stations of the cross at St. 
Eemi. Preceded by the crucifix, every one of the reverend 
canons, who were arranged in double file as in ordinary pro- 
cessions, trailed after him a herring attached to a string. The 
effort of each was to step upon the herring belonging to his 
neighbor in front, and to save his own from the foot of his 
neighbor in the rear. 

Hilary, St., patron saint of Parma. His festival is celebrated 
January 14, though his death is usually ascribed to January 13 
(368), and in some very ancient martyrologies to November 1. 
Butler refers the festival to " some translation of his relics." 
St. Hilary was born in Poitiers, in Graul. His parents were 
pagans, but he was converted to Christianity. He was married 
before his conversion, and had a daughter, but from the time of 
his ordination he lived in continence. He was chosen Bishop of 
Poitiers about the year 353. He opposed the Arians with all 
his power, and in 356 he was banished on this account by the 
Emperor Constantius. Going to Phrygia, and afterwards to 
Italy, he kept up a constant warfare against the Arians. He 
returned to Gaul and died at Poitiers. A brilliant celestial light 
is said to have filled his chamber at the time of his death. Many 
miracles are said to have been wrought at his tomb. His remains 
were translated in the ninth century from Poitiers to the abbey 
of St. Denis, near Paris. The story that his relics were burned 
at Poitiers by the Huguenots in 1567 is held by Butler to refer 
only to some portion of the dust remaining in his tomb. The 
cathedral of Parma contains some of his relics. 

In English jurisprudence the name of this saint is commemo- 
rated in Hilary term, one of the four terms of the Courts of 
Law, which begins on January 11 and ends on the Wednesday 
before Easter. On the first day of the term it is a very old 
custom for the judges to breakfast with the Lord Chancellor 
at Lincoln's Inn and drive down with him in their respective 
carriages to Westminster Hall. The proceedings on arriving 



532 CURIOSITIES OF 

at the hall, however, have been greatly curtailed. Formerly 
the sergeants used to assemble, in their robes, in front of the 
Court of Common Pleas, and were formally saluted by each of 
the judges in order with "How d'ye do, brother? — I wish you 
a good term ;" but since the exclusive right of the sergeants to 
practise in the Common Pleas has been abolished this custom 
has been discontinued. At present the judges only walk up 
Westminster Hall in procession, and make formal bows to the 
assembled barristers on taking their seats upon the bench. 

At Oxford College Hilary term commences on January 14 and 
ends on the Saturday before Palm Sunday. 

Hilda's Tower. The genius of Hawthorne has given anew 
name to the famous mediaeval tower in Pome which is locally 
called La Torre della Scimia (" The Ape's Tower"). Legend re- 
lates that a baby, carried away by an ape, and borne to the top 
of the battlements, was restored in safety to its parents, in con- 
sequence of a vow which they made that they would cause a 
lamp to burn nightly, forever, before an image of the Yirgin, 
upon the summit. This building is known as Hilda's Tower, 
from the connection it has in Hawthorne's " Marble Faun," under 
the chapter entitled "The Virgin's Shrine." 

Hiring Fair, known also as Statute Fair. A peculiar insti- 
tution which still lingers in Wales and also to a less degree in 
Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Lincolnshire, in England. From time 
immemorial the custom has been to hold these fairs in every 
important centre of a farming district, their sole purpose being 
to bring servants and masters together. To them troop men 
and maidens in vast numbers, on fun and profit both intent. 
To them also troop the farmers, in search of the human toilers 
on their farms for the coming year. Sometimes, and originally 
always, these hiring-fairs were held on Martinmas Day, known 
as the servants' saint's day. At present the hiring fair is not 
confined to that day, but is held on different days in different 
towns, usually in either October or November. 

Men and maids stood in rows, the males together and the 
females together, while masters and mistresses walked down the 
lines and selected those whom they considered suitable. The 
men in Cumberland who desired to be hired stood with straws 
in their mouths, as indicated in the old couplet, — 

Suin at Carel [Carlisle] I stuid wid a strae 1' my mooth, 
And they tuik me, nae doubt, for a promisin' youth. 

In Lincolnshire the bargain is closed by the giving and taking 
of the fessen- or fasten-penny. This is usually a shilling. It 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 533 

is the accepted sign that the contract between the employer and 
employed is closed for a twelve-month. The farm-servant who 
has once accepted the fessen-penny and entered upon his situa- 
tion may not, in fact, discharge himself under the twelve-month. 
The night of the fair is given up to riotous amusement, in 
which drunkenness plays a prominent part. 

Hock or Hoke Day. A former holiday in England, which 
still has some faint local survivals, and which was usually cele- 
brated on the Tuesday following the second Sunday after Easter. 
In many places, however, Monday as well as Tuesday was de- 
voted to the characteristic pastime of Hocktide, which was 
known as Binding ; hence Binding Monday and Binding Tuesday 
were alternative titles. On Monday the women bound the men, 
and vice versa on Tuesday. Binding consisted in stretching a 
rope across the highways and catching in the toils wayfarers of 
the appointed sex, who were not released until they had given 
some small sum to be laid out in pious uses. Numerous ancient 
parish registers contain records of money thus gathered. So 
late as 1559 the following entry occurs in St. Mary's parish 
register : 

Hoctyde money, the mens gatheryng, iiijs. 

The womens, xijs. 

One of the uses of the money collected at Hocktide was the 
repairing of the parish church. Various etymologies have been 
suggested for the word hock or hoke^ but none is entirely satis- 
factory. 

The custom, which became obsolete in the beginning of the 
eighteenth century, can be traced under this name as far back as 
the thirteenth century, but it probably dates from an earlier 
period, and may even be a survival from Anglo-Saxon times, 
when the offerings subsequently devoted to church uses may 
have been meant for some one of the pagan gods. There is a 
striking analogy between this custom and that of lifting (^. v.~) 
on Easter Monday. At Coventry there was a play or pageant 
attached to the ceremony known as the Old Coventry Play of 
Hock Tuesday. This was revived for the benefit of Queen Eliz- 
abeth as part of the festivities attending her visit to Kenilworth 
in July, 1575. It represented a series of combats between the 
Danes and the Saxons, in which the former were twice tri- 
umphant, but were finally overcome by the appearance of the 
Saxon women, who took many of them captive and led them in 
triumph past the royal throne. The regular performance had 
been suppressed soon after the Eeformation, on account of the 
riot and disorder which it frequently occasioned. It has been 



534 CURIOSITIES OF 

surmised from the evidence of the play that Hocktide was origi- 
nally instituted to commemorate the massacre of the Danes on 
St. Brice's Day, a.d. 1002 (but St. Brice's Day, unfortunately for 
this conjecture, is November 13), or the rejoicings which followed 
the death of Hardicanute, the expulsion of the Danish invaders, 
and the accession of Edward the Confessor. It is probable, 
however, that these explanations were invented in Christian 
times after the pagan origin of the feast had been forgotten. 

Some singular Hocktide customs survive in Hungerford, 
Berkshire. They are connected with the charter whereby the 
commons hold the rights of fishing, shooting, and pasturage of 
cattle on the lands bequeathed to the town by John o' Gaunt, 
Duke of Lancaster, in 1399. A " watercress supper" at the hotel 
of " John o' Gaunt" inaugurates the festivities on Hock Monday. 
Besides the eponymic herb, black broth, macaroni, Welsh rabbit, 
and salad are served, accompanied by bowls of punch. Early 
on the morrow, which is known as Tuth Day, the town crier 
blows from the balcony of the town hall an ancient horn, the 
gift of John o' Gaunt. The Hocktide Court assembles, and the' 
commoners are summoned to appear and " save their commons" 
for the ensuing year. Then the tuth or tutti men proceed to the 
high constable's residence, to receive the emblems of their office. 
These are long poles, wreathed around with tutties or posies of 
flowers and gaudy ribbons. The first duty of these officials of 
a day (who are usually substantial tradesmen of the borough) 
is to visit the various schools and ask a holiday for the children, 
then to call at each house and demand a coin from the men and 
a kiss from the women, presenting every member of the house- 
hold with an orange. The collection of pennies is a simple mat- 
ter, and the majority of the women submit gracefully to ancient 
usage. But the haughtier dames are apt to retreat behind bolts 
and bars until the tutti men have departed. A troop of children 
expectant of oranges follow the tutti men through the streets, 
which are for several hours kept alive by joyous shouts and 
huzzas. At the Three Swans a luncheon is given by the high 
constable, during the progress of which the boys and girls 
scramble for pennies and oranges thrown to them from the 
windows. The Hocktide proceedings are brought to a close by 
the constable, feoffers, and other officers attending service in the 
parish church. (Ditchfield, pp. 90-92 ; Dyer, pp. 188-192.) 

Hodening. A custom which prevails in Wales, and locally in 
Kent, Lancashire, and other English counties, at various dates 
during the Christmas and New Year seasons, and seems to be 
a survival of the Hobby-horse once rampant at Christmas-time. 
A horse's skull, or sometimes a wooden imitation, is dressed up 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 535 

\ 
with ribbons, and supported on a pole by a man who is concealed 
under a large white cloth. By pulling a string tied to the lower 
jaw he keeps up a loud snapping noise. In Wales a party of 
young men grotesquely habited and ringing hand-bells accom- 
pany him on Christmas Eve in a house-to-house procession. At 
every door they sing some extempore verses requesting admit- 
tance, and are in turn answered by those within, until one party 
or the other is at a loss for a reply. If the processioners fail 
they move away baffled, but if they win in this poetical tourna- 
ment they are rewarded with beer and cakes and perhaps money. 
Another feature of the fun which has its pecuniary attractions 
is for the horse to pursue and bite such well-to-do wayfarer as 
may happen to be met on the way, and refuse to release him save 
on payment of a fine. In Wales the horse's head is called Mari 
Lwyd. A contributor to the Church Times of January 23, 1891, 
gives this description of a hodening in Kent : " When I was a 
lad, about forty-five years since, it was always the custom, on 
Christmas Eve, with the male farm-servants from every farm in 
our parish of Hoath, and neighboring parishes of Heme and 
Chislet, to go round in the evening from house to house with the 
hoodining horse, which consisted of the imitation of a horse's 
head made of wood, life-size, fixed on a stick about the length 
of a broom-handle. The lower jaw of the head was made to 
open with hinges ; a hole was made through the roof of the 
mouth, then another through the forehead, coming out by the 
throat ; through this was passed a cord attached to the lower jaw, 
which, when pulled by the cord at the throat, caused it to close 
and open ; on the lower jaw large-headed hobnails were driven 
in to form the teeth. The strongest of the lads was selected for 
the horse ; he stooped, and made as long a back as he could, sup- 
porting himself by the stick carrying the head ; then he was 
covered with a horse-cloth, and one of his companions mounted 
his back. The horse had a bridle and reins. Then commenced 
the kicking, rearing, jumping, etc., and the banging together of 
the teeth." There was no singing by the accompanying paraders. 
They simply by ringing or knocking at the houses on their way 
summoned the inmates to the doors and begged a gratuity. "I 
have seen some of the wooden heads carved out quite hollow in 
the throat part, and two holes bored through the forehead to 
form the eyes. The lad who played the horse would hold a 
lighted candle in the hollow, and you can imagine how horrible 
it was to any one who opened the door to see such a thing close 
to his eyes." The same authority adds that the custom had been 
kept up to within three or four years of the date of his writing. 
In the " Penitential" of Archbishop Theodore (died 690) pen- 
ances are ordained for " any who, on the Kalends of January, 



536 CURIOSITIES OF 

clothe themselves with the skins of cattle and carry heads of 
animals." The practice is condemned as being dcemoniacum. It 
is noticeable that at the ancient Scandinavian sacrifices per- 
formed at the time of the winter solstice the horse was a fre- 
quent victim in the offerings to Odin for martial success, as the 
hog was the chosen animal in the oiferings to Freya for a fruitful 
year. It has therefore been suggested that hodening is a corrup- 
tion of Odining and is a relic of Scandinavian mythology. 

There is a wide-spread superstition that were-wolves, or men 
who have been changed into wolves, meet together at certain 
places on Christmas night and there " do so rage with wonderful 
fierceness both against mankind and other creatures that are not 
fierce by nature, that the inhabitants of that country suffer more 
hurt from them than ever they do from the true natural wolves " 
Such are the words of Olaus Magnus, who further describes how 
these were-wolves go into cellars and drink up all the mead and 
beer they can find, " wherein they differ from the natural and 
true wolves." 

When the Prince of Wales was in India he was present at a 
wild dance performed by a party of Lamas at Jummu. Mr. Wil- 
liam Simpson, in his "Buddhist Praying- Wheel," p. 31, quotes 
an account given in the Indian Public Opinion and Panjab Times, 
January, 1876. The dancers came along "jumping and dancing 
in the most outrageous costumes. One man carried an incense- 
vessel, held in his hands with chains identically as it is carried 
ih a Eoman ^Catholic church. One man had a hat in color and 
shape resembling the comb of a cock, but most of them had 
huge wide-brimmed hats surmounted by tridents and all sorts of 
things like vanes and weathercocks, from which long strips of 
colored silk hung down behind. The costumes were purely 
Chinese, the body of their dresses being similar to that worn by 
mandarins, only that they had capes, aprons, and tags and rags 
of all kinds hanging upon them, which flew out as the dancers 
went round in their uncouth gambols. After dancing in a circle 
for a short time, going round with the right shoulder to the 
centre, which is the same turn as the praying-wheel goes round, 
they retired, and very quickly came back again. The large 
broad-brimmed hats were wanting, and all the dancers had the 
heads of animals exactly like what we see in a pantomime; 
there were ox-heads, boar-heads, elephant-heads, also large grin- 
ning and laughing heads, painted in all tints. The jumping and 
whirling round was the same each time they changed their head- 
dresses. We were led to understand that symbolism was ex- 
pressed in the costumes, the heads, and in all the various parts 
of this uncouth performance, but its meaning was not at all clear 
to our Western ideas." 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 537 

Holiday. This is an obvious corruption of holy day, — i.e., sl 
day set apart by the Church in honor of some important event 
or saintly personage associated with the date. In the latter case 
it is the death-day and not the birthday that is usually com- 
memorated. The Catholic Church distinguishes holidays into 
those of obligation and those not of obligation. In the former 
case the faithful must attend mass, and as far as possible should 
refrain from worldly pursuits. But a certain latitude is allowed 
in Protestant countries, where cessation from business would 
entail serious individual loss. In Catholic countries the multi- 
plicity of holidays is frequently attended with civic embarrass- 
ments, and the government has frequently interfered to curb 
sacerdotal zeal. The same thing has happened in India. /So 
numerous were the Hindoo holidays that at one time the British 
found it difiicult to get the natives in their employ to give their 
services for more than two hundred days in the year. It was 
an indolent pleasure-seeking, however, rather than the exactions 
of their religion, which made so many blank days in the working 
year ; and a government inquiry into the subject, with a subse- 
quent threat of dismissal, enabled the Hindoo oflScials materially 
to curb their passion for devotional exercises. From seventy or 
eighty the " red-letter days" have now fallen to less than twenty ; 
the great poojahs (" worships") are limited to two or three ; and 
it is only upon the occasion of the Doorga festival — called the 
Dusserah in Western India — that several days of entire absence 
from public duties are permitted. 

In America every individual State has its legal holidays, which 
are enforced by statute. But each State is left to its own 
devices in this matter. Properly speaking, national holidays do 
not exist, although there are several holidays, as Christmas, the 
Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving, which are now observed by 
all the States. But they derive their sanction from State and not 
from national authority. 

The English indulge in very few periodical glorifications. The 
anniversary of Waterloo was kept during the life of the Duke 
of Wellington strictly as a private gathering, and there is not a 
single event in their prolific history which they celebrate by 
national jubilation. Political feasts and fasts have had no 
vitality except when associated with party struggles, and even 
in this sense they are becoming obsolete. A few obstinate 
Orangemen glorify themselves very absurdly on the anniversary 
of the battle of the Boyne, Guy Fawkes still amuses children on 
the 5th of November, but the questionable memories of Stuart 
triumphs and the annual remembrance of the great revolution 
had died out of the minds of men long before it was determined 
to obliterate them from the pages of the Prayer Book. 



638 CURIOSITIES OF 

As to saints' days, they were abolished at the Eeformation, 
when Merrie England at the bidding of the Puritans gave up 
holidays altogether. The restoration of the Stuart family 
brought with it the restoration of Christmas and Good Friday, 
and eventually Easter Monday, Whit Monday, and Boxing Day 
crept back into the popular calendar as at least partial holidays. 
But bankers and merchants could not close on the latter days, 
because they were bound during business hours to meet all 
claims legally made upon them, nor could they allow their 
employees to leave. As a matter of fact, no commercial offices 
recognized any week-day holidays save only Christmas and Good 
Friday. ^Thus stood matters when Sir John Lubbock in 1865 
was invited to stand as a Liberal candidate for West Kent. " I 
naturally asked myself," he says, " what I should do if I were 
elected, and one of the reasons which influenced me was the 
hope of securing, on behalf of our people, a few days for rest 
and recreation. The holidays already in existence were all of 
rehgious origin. It is remarkable that the Bank Holidays 
created by the Act of 1871 were the first ever instituted by any 
Legislature for the purposes of rest and enjoyment." (See Bank 
Holidays.) 

Holly Bussing. An ancient custom still surviving at Neih- 
erwitton, in Northumberland, England. The lads and lasses of 
the village and vicinity meet on Easter Tuesday, and, accom- 
panied by the parish clerk and a fiddler (this dual capacity 
is often combined in one individual), proceed to the wood to 
get holly, with which some decorate a stone across the stands 
in the village, while others " bob around" to the tune of " Speed 
the Plough" or " Birnie Bouzle." (Dyer : British Popular Cus- 
toms^ p. 180.) 

Holy Saturday. The Saturday before Easter. In Catholic 
churches the ceremonies begin early in the morning with the 
striking of the new fire struck from the flint. This custom is 
comparatively recent. It would appear that in some churches a 
daily blessing was given to the fire struck for the kindling of the 
lamps. About the year 1100 this benediction was reserved ex- 
clusively for Holy Saturday, the fire being considered an appro- 
priate image of the Light of light rising again like the sun in 
his strength. From this fire a three- stemmed candle, affixed to 
a reed, is lighted and carried up the church by a deacon, who 
three times chants the words "Lumen Christi." The same sym- 
bol reappears in the Paschal candle {q. v.), which is blessed by 
the deacon on this day. Then occurs the blessing of the bap- 
tismal font, a reminiscence of the time in the ancient Church 





" ' '%^ 





POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



639 



when the catechumens were presented to the bishop for baptism 
on Holy Saturday and the vigil of Pentecost. At Eome this 
day is especially chosen for the baptism of converted Jews, and 
the ceremony of baptizing a Jewish child in the church of St. 
John Lateran is especially formal and imposing. 

At Eome the houses of the faithful are annually blessed on 
Holy Saturday. The cure or a priest of the parish in a beretta 
and white surplice, a prayer book in his hand, and preceded by a 
little choir-boy who carries the holy water and the aspersory, 
walks through the streets, entering shops and houses for the 
purpose of sprinkling them. He is rewarded by some slight 




Depositing the Sacrament. 
(From Picart.) 

money offering from the faithful who consent to have the cere- 
mony performed. In the old days of the temporal power he did 
not wait for this consent. 

A remarkable variant of this custom, evidently a survival of 
Catholic usage, was practised on New Year's eves at Tenby in 
Wales up to the middle of the eighteenth century. Crowds of 
boys and girls used to visit each house, carrying with them a cup 
of water and a sprig of box-wood with which they besprinkled 
not only the inmates but also the furniture of the rooms, accom- 
panying the operation with the following singular rhyme: 



540 CURIOSITIES OF 

Here we bring new water from the well so clear, 
For to worship God with this happy New Year ; 
Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, the water and the wine, 
With seven bright gold wires, and bugles that do shine ; 
Sing reign of fair maid, with gold upon her toe, 
Open you the west door and turn the old year go ; 
Sing reign of fair maid, with gold upon her chin, 
Open you the east door and let the new year in. 

The term levy dew is sometimes interpreted as the French 
'' levez Dieu," but more plausibly as the Welsh " lief i Dduw," 
— a cry to God. 

In the middle parts of Ireland great preparations are made 
on Holy Saturday for the finishing of Lent. Many a fat hen 
and dainty piece of bacon is put into the pot, by the cotter's 
wife, about eight or nine o'clock, and woe be to the person who 
should taste it before the cock crows. At twelve is heard the 
clapping of hands, and the joyous laugh, mixed with an Irish 
phrase which signifies " out with the Lent." All is merriment 
for a few hours, when they retire, and rise about four o'clock to 
see the sun dance in honor of the resurrection. This custom is 
not confined to the humble laborer and his family, but is scru- 
pulously observed by many highly respectable and wealthy 
families. (Brand : Popular Antiquities, 1849, vol. i. p. 161.) 

Honoratus, St. (Fr. Honore), patron of bakers. His festival 
is celebrated on his death-day. May 16. He was Bishop of Amiens 
in the seventh century. In 1204 a collegiate church was buil^ 
in his honor at Paris by a private gentleman named Eenold 
Cherins, which became very famous. 

A representation of St. Honore, clad in his episcopal robes, 
with the crosier in his left hand and in his right an oven-peel 
bearing three loaves of bread, appears on the ancient banners of 
the Bakers' Guild in Paris. His festival was solemnly celebrated 
by a procession of bakers and their apprentices, accompanied 
by girls in white dresses, to the church of the Trinity, in Paris, 
where they heard high mass. Subsequently they wound up the 
day with a dinner and a ball. 

Hood, Throwing the. An annual sport performed on Jan- 
uary 6 at Haxey, in Lincolnshire. It is said to have been insti- 
tuted many centuries ago by a female member of the house of 
Mowbray, who were once considered the greatest folk in that 
part of the country. One Christmas Day as she was riding over 
the Meeres to the village church a gale of wind blew oif her 
hood. Twelve farming men quit their work in the field and ran 
to gather up the hood. The lady found so much amusement in 
the scene that she forbade her own attendants to join in the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 541 

pursuit. When the hood was at length recaptured and placed 
on the lady's head, she cordially thanked the men, gave them 
each some money, and promised that forty acres of land should 
be devoted to the annual sport of throwing up a hood for cap- 
ture on Christmas Day. The land is still known as the hood- 
lands, and even after the change in the calendar the sport has 
continued to be celebrated on Old Christmas Day, or January 6. 
By the terms of the gift twelve men should fight for the posses- 
sion of a hood thrown up in the air. They should be clothed in 
a uniform of scarlet jerkins and velvet caps. 

Folklore for December, 1896, quotes an account of the game as 
it was played that year, from the pen of Mr. C. C. Bell, a resi- 
dent of the island of Axholme. " The hood," he says, " is now 
kept up by subscription, or rather by begging. The boggans go 
round the parish and neighborhood for a week or a fortnight 
before the date, and collect what they can. This year, I believe, 
they got thirty or forty shillings. The boggans were originally 
twelve in number, but have now dwindled down to four or five. 
There is also ' My Lord' and a Fool. The company are called 
together at two p.m. by the ringing of the church bells, the place 
of assembly being the green close by the churchyard. Here 
there is a stone, round which the people group themselves. On 
Monday My Lord with his fool and the boggans arrived on the 
scene at two-fifty. The fool was dressed in a suit of old sailing, 
stitched all over with threads of gayly-colored cloth. He carried 
the hoods under his arm, and a stout staff with a rabbit-skin 
slung to the end of it. The fool was hoisted on the stone by My 
Lord, and the boggans grouped themselves close round. They 
were dressed in short red smocks, with their caps grotesquely 
decorated. The fool then opened the proceedings by a speech. 
Formerly this was a great feature, being made the occasion of a 
good deal of topical wit and satire, but it is now a very tame 
afi^air, lasting only a couple of minutes, and consisting of a few 
traditionary phrases. It ran something like this : 

" ' Now, good folks, this is Haxa' Hood. We've killed two 
bullocks and a half, but the oth^r half we had to leave running 
about field : we can fetch it if it^s wanted. Ee member it's 

Hoose agin hoose, toon agin toon, 

And if you meet a man knock him doon. ' 

This was all, the verses being clearly a most essential feature. 
They were much applauded, and at their conclusion the fool 
jumped down, and My Lord led the way to the open field behind 
the church. It is his part to throw the hood, or, rather, hoods, 
for there are six of them, one, I suppose, for each of the prin- 
cipal hamlets round. The first five were of sacking, and these 



542 CURIOSITIES OF 

are, I understand, made every year as wanted, but the last, the 
hood par excellence^ is of leather, and is kept from year to 3'ear. 
The object is to cany them off the field away from the boggans. 
If any of these can get hold of them, or even touch them, they 
have to be given up and carried back to My Lord. For every 
one carried ofP the field the boggans forfeit half a crown, which 
is spent in beer, doubtless by the men of the particular hamlet 
who have carried oif the hood. There are certain wards — it may 
be a tree or a building — showing the limits of the field, and when 
one of these is reached the hood is struck against it and is then 
out of the boggans' domain. This is termed ' wyking' the hood. 
This goes on with the different hoods in turn until four o'clock, 
when the leather hood (the hood) is thrown up, and for this there 
is a great struggle, chiefly between the men of Haxey and those 
of Westwoodside, — that is to say, really between the customers 
of the public houses there, — each trying to get it to his favorite 
house. The publican at the successful house stands beer, — I do 
not know whether there is any stated amount, — and the game 
ends usually in a drunken spree." 

In conclusion, Mr. Bell adds, it was the custom until recently 
to " smoke" the fool over a straw fire on the morning after the 
hood. " He was suspended above the fire and swung backward 
and forward over it until almost suffocated, then allowed to 
drop into the smouldering straw, which was well wetted, and 
to scramble out when he could." 

Horn Dance. A curious survival from mediaeval times which 
is still celebrated during the Sej)tember "wakes" at Abbots 
Bromley, a village on the borders of Needwood Forest in Staf- 
fordshire. Six or seven quaintly dressed fellows, each wearing 
a deer's skull with antlers, caper through the streets, urged on 
in their g^-rations by another individual "wearing" a property- 
horse made of wood and cloth. This horseman cariies a whip, 
with which he keeps the dancers moving energetically, whilst a 
sportsman with a bow and arrow takes make-believe shots at 
the excited "deer." In former time, a pot full of cakes and ale 
was an appanage of the dance, and contributions towards church 
repairs were levied on all spectators. The horn dance then took 
place on certain Sunday mornings at the main entrance to the 
parish church ; the present date is the Monda}^ after Wakes 
Sunday, which is the Sunday next to September 4. The horns 
are the property of the vicar during his incumbency, and are 
kept, with the hobby-horse frame, the bow and arrow, and the 
curious old pot for collecting money, in the church tower. The 
horns have been examined by Dr. Cox and pronounced to be 
reindeer horns. The hobby-horse is of the familiar pattern used 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



543 



in the hobby-horse and hodening sports of the past; i.e., its 
under jaw is worked by a string, so that it " clacks" against the 
upper jaw in time with the step. 

Dr. Plot, in his " Natural History of Staffordshire," 1686, p. 
434, mentions this custom, which seems then to have been in 
temporary abeyance, doubtless owing to the civil wars. 

The dance, according to his account, took place " within mem- 
ory" during the Christmas holidays, and the stag's horns were 
painted with the arms of the chief families of the town. Some 
traces of the paint still remain. "To the Hobby- Horse Dance," 




Horn Dance. 



he says, " there also belonged a pot, which was kept by Turnes 
by four or five of the chief of the Town, whom they call'd 
Eeeves, who provided cakes and ale to put in this pot." It was 
then, probably, shared as a loving-cup among the spectators. 
Every well-disposed householder contributed a penny apiece for 
himself and his family; and with the levy thus made, togetlier 
with the contributions of " forraigners that come to see it," were 
defrayed, first, the cost of the c^kes and ale, then the expense of 
the repairs of the church and the support of the poor. Tradition 
says that when the money collected was used for these public 
purposes the dance was performed in the churchyard on Sunday 
after service. Now the -dancers have the proceeds for them- 
selves. (See Folklore, vol. vii. (1896) p. 381.) 

Hospital Saturday, Hospital Sunday. The last Saturday 
and the last Sunday in December arc so denominated in London 
and in New York because in most of the churches and syna- 
gogues those days are devoted to the taking up of special con- 



644 CURIOSITIES OF 

tributions for the metropolitan hospitals. In New York the 
idea of making a special appeal at the close of every year in 
behalf of the hospitals was first suggested in 1873. It was not, 
however, original in this country. It has been in successful op- 
eration in England for many years, until now about fifteen hun- 
dred churches of various denominations, as well as Jewish syna- 
gogues, take up collections for the hospitals. In St. Paul's 
Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, in London, services are con- 
tinued throughout the day, with a collection at each service. 
The queen is the patron of the movement, and the lord mayor 
of London is the treasurer. Last year the total contributions 
in London amounted to about a quarter of a million dollars, 
against $58,208.29 contributed from all sources in New York, 
which, perhaps, may be regarded as a fair showing for the latter 
when its size, compared with that of London, is taken into 
account. 

The movement in New York is under the patronage of the 
Hospital Saturday and Sunday Association, which divides the 
contributions received among thirty-eight hospitals on the basis 
of the free w^ork performed by them in behalf of the suffering 
poor through the year. 

Hubert of L#iege, St., patron saint of the chase and of dogs. 
Though hagiologists name May 30, 727, as the date of his death, 
his festival is celebrated on November 3, " probably on account 
of some translation," says Butler. Not impossibly, however, it 
is due to the fact that the beginning of November is the natural 
opening of the hunting season. All that is known of St. Hubert 
as a matter of history is that he was born in the latter half of the 
seventh century, that he succeeded his master, St. Lambert, as 
Bishop of Maestricht, that he removed the seat of the see to 
Liege, that he labored with great success for the evangelization 
of the heathen population of the Ardennes, and that he died a 
natural death about 727. 

Legend makes him begin life as a nobleman at the court 
of Theodoric III., passionately addicted, among other worldly 
amusements, to the chase. On a certain Good Friday, as he 
was profanely engaged in his favorite amusement, the crucified 
Saviour appeared to him between the horns of the stag and 
commanded him to forsake the vanities of the world and devote 
himself to the service of God. 

Legend, supplemented by some historical evidence, adds that 
his body was conveyed to Liege and deposited in the collegiate 
church of St. Peter. In 825 it was translated to the Benedictine 
abbey of Audain (since called St. Hubert's) in the Ardennes, on 
the frontiers of the duchy of Luxembourg. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 545 

St. Hubert's Day is the formal commencement of the hunting 
season in France, as the first Monday in November is in England. 
In many of the rural churches of France St. Hubert's mass is 
celebrated on this occasion. All the hunting dogs in the neigh- 
borhood are brought to the church. Low mass is said, and then 
the priest solemnly makes his way down through the aisle into 
the yard. A piqueur toots a jolly fanfare. At this familiar sound 
the pack tears pell-mell out of the chapel, and in obedience to a 
word from the keeper rallies around the priest, who thereupon 
blesses and breaks the sacred cake, which is a sovereign antidote 
against madness, and administers it to the brutes, together with 
a priestly pat between the ears. Then huntsmen, villagers, spec- 
tators, and dogs are included in a general blessing, and away go 
the huntsmen and the pack, anointed with the oil of righteous- 
ness, ready for the slaughter of as many of God's creatures as 
they can run to their death. 

The association of St. Hubert with the chase accounts for his 
being invoked for protection from rabies, this being one of the 
perils to which huntsmen were especially hable. A document 
written about the year 1100 records a miraculous cure of hydro- 
phobia wrought through the intercession of the saint, and the 
terms in which it is mentioned show that at that time the cus- 
tom of seeking his aid in cases of this disease was already well 
established. The cure was effected by inserting under the skin 
of the patient a thread from St. Hubert's stole ; and this mode of 
treatment has continued to be practised down to the present day. 

This operation, however, is resorted to only in what are con- 
sidered extreme cases; that is to say, when there is no reason to 
doubt that the dog by which the patient has been bitten was 
really mad, and when the bite has drawn blood. In other cases 
the priests in charge of St. Hubert's shrine are empowered to 
grant what is called a " respite" (repit), which secures the patient 
against hydrophobia for a specified period varying from forty 
days to ninety-nine years. The " respite" for forty days may 
also be given by any person who has himself undergone the op- 
eration of the " incision." It is to be remarked that the use of 
ordinary means of healing, in addition to those of a supernatural 
kind, is rather encouraged than otherwise, and that the patient 
who avails himself of either the " incision" or the " respite" is 
required to submit to certain judicious regulations with regard 
to his diet and to his general manner of life. Some even of M. 
Pasteur's patients are said to have made themselves doubly secure 
by undergoing the " incision" after having been treated by the 
Parisian savant. 

Mad dogs are known in literature as early as Homer (Iliad, 
viii. 299). ^lian says that if a stone which a dog has bitten be 

35 



546 CURIOSITIES OF 

put in the wine at a banquet it will madden the guests. Aa the 
origin of rabies was, and is, unknown, early science attributed 
it to a " worm," which may have been short for microbe, but 
more probably was only the magical worm of folk-medicine. 
The worm was in the tongue or the tail of the dog; hence the 
practice of " worming" it (everement or everration). The usual 
remedy was " a hair of the dog that bit you" reduced to ashes. 
Gubernatis mentions a cure in which the wound given by the 
dog is covered with wolf-skin, perhaps as a magical counter-irri- 
tant. Pliny has a wondrous tale of a Eoman matron, mother 
of a Praetorian, who was advised, in a dream, to send her son the 
root of a dog-rose. The Guards were in Spain, where the dog- 
rose root reached the man just when he had been bitten by a 
mad dog. He was about going mad when the dog-rose reached 
him ; he drank a decoction of it, and recovered. Similia simili- 
bus curantur. In Crete it was usual to take mad dogs, and people 
bitten by mad dogs, to the temple of Artemis at Eocca. The 
sufferers were made to eat a fish provocative of thirst. Modern 
m3'th-mongers suppose that Diana, a favorite goddess in Gaul, 
survived long in the woodlands, — 

fechevelee a travers la clairiere 
Diane court dans la noire foret, — 

and that St. Hubert succeeded to her divine power of healing 
rabies. The legendary book " Les Miracles de Saint-Hubert" was 
written between 1087 and 1106. From this work we learn that 
the first-fruits of the chase had long been offered to St. Hubert, 
as of old to Diana. He had long, moreover, been in the habit 
of curing rabies by means of a thread of gold from the sacred 
stole worked by the Virgin herself and given to the saint in a 
vision. 

Professor John W. Hales has plausibly suggested, in th.QAthe- 
nceum^ an identification of Old Mother Hubbard of the nursery 
rhyme with St. Hubert. That Hubbard is a corruption of 
Hubert is evident enough. The story of Mother Hubbard with 
her care for the dog may be a sort of parody of the legend of 
the dog-saint Hubert, possibly a Protestant mockery of it, com- 
posed when the belief in saints and their powers was rapidly 
decaying, or decayed, the title " Mother" being given in a con- 
temptuous sense, just as we style a certain kind of man an " old 
woman." Mother Hubbard is a good old soul, but all her canine 
anxieties and efforts are quite futile ; her dog is none the better 
for her patronage. And so, it is by no means unlikely, in her 
person the saint is derided. Old Mother Hubbard seems to have 
been a familiar figure in the days of Spenser, for in his " Proso- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 547 

popoia, or Mother Hubberds Tale," he merely introduces her as 
the teller of the story of the fox and the ape and how they 
went swindling together, without deeming it necessary to enter 
into any explanation as to who she was. To mention her hon- 
ored name was apparently enough. Her great reputation made 
any fuller record unnecessary. 

Hugh, St. There are two saints of this name, both vener- 
ated in Lincoln, England. The first (1140-1200) became Bishop 
of Lincoln in 1186, and enlarged the cathedral. He died in 
London, and his body arrived at the gate of Lincoln just as 
John and Malcolm of Scotland entered the city. The two kings, 
eager to honor so holy a corpse, at once set their shoulders to 
the bier and bore it to the cathedral, where it was buried near 
the altar of St. John the Baptist. Bishop Hugh was canonized 
at Eome in 1220, and sixty years later his bones were placed in 
a gold shrine, which disappeared at the Reformation, when zeal 
and theft ran high. Bishop Fuller afterwards erected a plain 
altar-tomb over the good man's grave. 

A monument standing in the south aisle of the choir of Lin- 
coln Cathedral is traditionally believed to have been the tomb 
of little Sir or Saint Hugh, a child found murdered at Lincoln in 
1225, and vulgarly supposed to have been crucified by some cruel 
and blasphemous Jews in derision of our Saviour's sufferings. 
There were many ballads written about this supposed crime, 
the best of which commences, — 

The bonny boys of merry Lincoln 

Were playing at the ball ; 
And with them stood the sweet Sir Hugh, 

The flower among them all. 

Chaucer at once seized on so recent a miracle, and introduced 
"Young Hew of Lincoln" into his Prioress's story. Bishop 
Percy, with less than his usual acumen, mistook " Mirryland 
Toun" for Mailand, Milan, and concluded the whole to be of 
Italian origin. The story may, after all, be a true one, for Mat- 
thew Paris, who was living at the time, relates it circumstan- 
tially. Mr. Lethieullier in the Archceologia cites two records, one 
of which was a commission from the king (Henry III.) to seize 
for the king's use the houses belonging to those Jews who were 
hanged at Lincoln for crucifying a child. According to Matthew 
Paris, the boy, eight years old, was tortured for ten days before 
a large council of Jews, in contempt of Christianity. They 
scourged him with rods, spat in his face, mutilated his nose, ears,- 
and lips, and on the tenth day they crucified him, and, while he 
hung on the cross, pierced his side with a spear. The body was 



548 CURIOSITIES OF 



1 

Jop-^ 



found in a pit or draw-well in the house of a Jew, named Jop 
pin, which the boy had been seen to enter. Joppin, being prom- 
ised pardon, confessed the crime, and avowed that such murders 
were committed nearly every year by his nation. Notwithstand- 
ing the promise of pardon, the Jew was tied to the tail of a 
horse and dragged to the gallows, and eventually eighteen of the 
richest and most distinguished Jews in Lincoln were hanged for 
sharing in the murder, and many more sent as hostages to the 
Tower of London. Herd and Jamieson both give variations 
of this once popular ballad. In 1736, when Lethieullier visited 
Lincoln Cathedral, he was shown a painted statuette of a boy 
which was erroneously supposed to have formed part of " Bishop 
Hugh's" tomb. There were bleeding wounds marked on the 
hands, feet, and side, and the antiquary conjectures that the 
shrine given in Stukeley's " Itinerarium Curiosum" was the real 
tomb of Sir Hugh. 

Little Hugh's name appears in the Calendar of Saints on 
August 27, although his death seems to have occurred at about 
the time of the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, June 29. 

Besides this boy many other Christian children are said to 
have suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Jews, who made a 
practice of sacrificing them at the Paschal season. There is the 
famous case of Eichard of Pontoise in 1182, which led to the ex- 
pulsion of the Jews from France, and that of William of Norwich 
in 1137. The shrine of St. William in the Wood, built where his 
body was found, was long an object of pious pilgrimage. 

The Jews, we are told, never buried their victims after a 
sacrifice, because of a law which forbade their so dealing with 
Christians. Consequently their crimes rarely went undiscovered. 
Heaven itself was interested in seeing that they should not, 
for when the Jews sought at least to hide the bodies in a well or 
thicket a miraculous light revealed their whereabouts. 

Sir Eichard Burton leans to the view that there is some truth 
in these hideous stories. And when one reads the more hideous 
stories of Jewish persecution in the Middle Ages, more hideous 
because more frequent and more unprovoked, one's only regret is 
that in lieu of innocent children the Jews did not seize some burly 
monarch or prelate and give him a taste of his own medicine. 



I. 

Ignatius Loyola, St., founder of the order of Jesuits. His 
festival is celebrated on the day of his death, July 3. 

St. Ignatius Loyola was of a noble Spanish family, and was 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 549 

born in Biscay in 1491. He was brought up at the court of 
Ferdinand and Isabella, and spent the early years of his life 
amid the pleasures of the court and in fighting in the army of 
Ferdinand. A long illness caused by a wound turned his mind 
towards rehgion, and on his recovery he retired to Manresa, 
where he gave himself up to penance and meditation. 

It is related that he went nearly mad from doubt, but was com- 
forted by heavenly visions. He spent several years in theologi- 
cal study, and then went to Paris, where he became a pupil of St. 
Francis Xavier. He founded a community which, in addition to 
the usual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, bound them- 
selves to unreserved obedience to the Pope. The order was 
called the Society of Jesus. It was three years before St. Igna- 
tius obtained the confirmation of this order, of which he was 
the first general. Many miracles of healing the sick and casting 
out devils are attributed to him. He had the satisfaction of 
seeing his order grow and flourish in many countries. He died 
in 1556, and was buried in a church at Eome, but in 1597 his 
relics were removed to the Jesuit church of the Gesii, of which 
Cardinal Farnese had laid the corner-stone in 1568. He was 
canonized by Gregory XY. in 1622. 

A miraculous picture of St. Ignatius is preserved at Mune- 
brega, a village of Aragon, Spain. The tradition runs that a 
stranger appeared in January, 1623, before the ecclesiastical 
authorities and offered to paint the portrait of St. Ignatius. He 
was left alone in the studio. A few hours later the picture was 
finished and the artist had disappeared. Obviously he was an 
angel. Later in the year, on April 21, a copioas sweat flowed 
for four hours from under the right arm of the picture. It was 
neither blood nor water, but some wholly unknown liquid. The 
prodigy was repeated a fortnight afterwards. Since that time 
the chapel of St. Ignatius, where the picture is housed, has been 
one of the most renowned shrines in all Spain. Miraculous 
cures and other wonders are of continual occurrence among the 
pilgrims who resort thither. 

L 

Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. A festival 
celebrated by the Catholic Church on December 8. In the 
Anglican reformed calendar it appears as " The Conception of 
the B. Y. Mary," which was the original title in the mediaeval 
Church everywhere. The doctrine of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion, though long held as a pious belief, was not authoritatively 
proclaimed as an article of faith until 1854. This doctrine in 
brief is that the Blessed Yirgin was conceived in the womb of 
Anna her mother without the stain of original sin inherited by 
the rest of humanity from Adam. 



550 CURIOSITIES OF 

The Greek Emperor Manuel Comnenus (died 1180), in a 
Novella quoted by Balsamon, mentions the feast of the Blessed 
Virgin's Conception as one to be observed by the people on 
December 9. This is the date on which the festival is still cele- 
brated in the Greek Church. 

England is said to have been the first among the countries of 
Western Europe to keep this feast. Its introduction there is 
attributed to St. Anselm. At first it was left free to the people 
to observe it or not, but a Synod of London in 1287 enjoined 
it as a holiday of obligation. From England the celebration 
seems to have passed to Normandy, and then south to Lyons. 
St. Bernard reproved the canons of that city for introducing a 
custom which had not the sanction of the Eoman Church. St. 
Buonaventura (died 1274) speaks of the feast as established, but 
says he does not dare either to approve or disapprove it. (Lib. 
iii., Sententise, d. iii., qu. 1.) It is certain, however, that the feast 
had established itself in the calendar of the Roman Church 
before the middle of the fourteenth century. Sixtus IV., 
towards the close of the fifteenth century, sanctioned an office 
and mass proper to the day, for which, however, a new office 
was substituted by Pius V. Clement XI. made the day a holi- 
day of obligation, which it has remained ever since in the 
Catholic Church. Meanwhile the doctrine of the Immaculate 
Conception had been quietly gaining headway among Catholic 
theologians. The controversy had begun so early as the twelfth 
century, when the weight of opinion was against the theory. 
Duns Scotus, who died in 1308, seems to have inaugurated a 
general change to the affirmative. 

A rare illustrated pamphlet, published in 1470, and entitled 
"Defensorium inviolatsB perpetuseque virginitatis Marise," sums 
up all the medisBval arguments on this subject, and enforces 
them by aj)propriate illustrations. Thus, it asks, " If the com- 
panions of Diomedes were turned into birds, why should not 
God wish that his mother should be a maid?" 

Why not, indeed? The point, obvious enough, is made daz- 
zlingly clear by an elegant wood-cut representing the companions 
of Diomedes, after their metamorj)hosis, hopping cheerfully about 
the rocks in front of a mediaeval castle not much larger than 
themselves. 

The matter gave rise to keen discussion at Trent, and, though 
most of the bishops held the doctrine, the Council contented 
itself with a declaration that in defining the truth that the whole 
human race fell under original sin it did not intend to include 
in the decree " the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary." Suc- 
cessive Popes intimated their approval of the doctrine, though 
they did not bind it upon the consciences of the faithful. Bene- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 551 

diet XI Y., writing about the middle of the eighteenth century, 
sums up the whole state of the question in his day thus : " The 
Church inclines to the opinion of the Immaculate Conception ; 
but the Apostolic See has not yet defined it as an article of faith." 




A Pictorial Argument. 

So matters stood when, in ]P^ebruary, 1849, Pius IX. wrote from 
Gaeta to the bishops of the Catholic Church asking for their 
opinions on the subject. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish 
bishops, about four hundred and ninety in number, were nearly 
unanimous in their wish for the definition. But many bishops in 
France, Germany, and Switzerland hesitated, some because they 
did not accept the doctrine, others because they held its promul- 
gation to be temporarily inexpedient. Nearly six years later the 
question was closed. On December 8, 1854, Pius IX., in the 
presence of more than two hundred bishops, issued his solemn 
definition that the immaculate conception of Mary was a truth 
contained in the original teachings of the apostles, and an article 
of faith. Since then the feast has been ofticially known as that 
of the " Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary." 

Indian Summer. The name given by Americans to the 
short but surpassingly beautiful season in the latter part of 
autumn. A similar spell of fine weather is noticed in other 
countries also, and frequently compared to the halcj^on period 
of the Greeks, so that Shakespeare could pointedly say, " Expect 
Saint Martin's Summer, halcyon days" (Henry VI., Part I., 



552 CURIOSITIES OF 

Act I., Scene 2, line 131), in allusion to the season of which 
he elsewhere says, — 

Farewell thou latter spring, 

Farewell all hallown summer. {Henry IV.) 

In England the season derived its name of St. Martin's or 
Martinmas Summer from the fact that it commonly begins 
there about November 11, St. Martin's Bay; on the Continent it 
is called Summer Close and " L'ete de St.-Martin," with an un- 
gallant double meaning, which allows the term to be applied to 
ladies of advancing years. It may be that there is an association 
of the same idea, though less delicately expressed, in the German 
"der alte Weibersommer," while in Chili it is called St. John's 
Summer. In the United States this season generally begins 
in November, though the period varies within a month. It is 
characterized by fair but not brilliant weather ; the air is smoky 
and hazy, perfectly still and moist, and the sun shines dimly, but 
softly and sweetly, through an atmosphere that some call copper- 
colored, and others golden, in accordance with their power of 
poetical perception. The name of Indian summer is diiferently 
explained. Eev. James Freeman derives it from the fact that 
the Indians are particularly fond of it, regarding it as a special 
gift of their favorite god, the god of the Southwest, who sends 
the soft southwest winds, and to whom they go after death. 
Daniel Webster said that the early settlers gave that name to 
the season because they ascribed its peculiar features, the heat 
and the haze, to the burning of the prairies by the Indians at 
that time. Mr. Kercheval, however, gives a more plausible 
explanation : " It sometimes happened that after the apparent 
onset of winter the weather became warm, the smoky time com- 
menced, and lasted for a considerable number of days. This 
was the Indian summer, because it afforded the Indians — who 
during the severe winter never made any incursions into the 
settlements — another opportunity of visiting them with their 
destructive warfare. The melting of the snow saddened every 
countenance, and the genial warmth of the sun chilled every 
heart with horror. The apprehension of another visit from the 
Indians, and of being driven back to the detested fort, was pain- 
ful in the highest degree." (Schele de Yere : Americanisms.') 

Innocents' Day, Holy (in England more popularly known as 
Childermas). A festival celebrated in the Latin Church on 
December 28, and in the Greek Church on December 29 (O. S.), 
in commemoration of the babes slaughtered by order of King 
Herod to insure the killing of the infant Christ. From very 
early times these children were looked upon as martyrs. Irenseus 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 553 

(iii. 16, 4) and St. AuguBtine (" De Symbolo ad Catech.," lib. iii.) 
assert this clearly. But it is less certain when the feast began to 
be kept. In the earlier times it appears to have been bound up 
with the Epiphany. Pope Leo I. in almost all his sermons on 
the Epiphany refers to the Innocents. However, a separate 
festival of the Holy Innocents is mentioned in the Calendar of 
Carthage issued at the end of the fifth century. 

In Eome meat was anciently forbidden on this day, and it was 
observed with mourning. Micrologus gives this reason : " With 
right are the sufferings of the Holy Innocents attended with less 
festivity than the celebration of other saints, for, though they 
were crowned with martyrdom, they went at once, not into 
Paradise, but into Limbo." They had to wait till Christ at his 
ascension opened the gates of heaven. Skulls of these children 
were among the relics shown at Paris in Notre-Dame, at St. 
Denis, and in the church of the Augustinians at Limoges. 

In the Middle Ages it was usual for children to keep a time of 
festivity in honor of the Holy Innocents which lasted from St. 
Stephen's Day to the octave of the Epiphany. Boys used to sit 
in the canons' stalls; one of them, vested with the episcopal 
robes, gave his blessing pontifically. (See Boy-Bishop.) The 
Council of Basle condemned the extravagances of this celebra- 
tion, which in some places deteriorated into the still more heinous 
mockeries of the Feast of Fools (j^. v.). But a Feast of Children 
is still innocently observed in some monasteries and convents. 

In consequence probably of the horror attaching to the 
atrocious act of Herod, Childermas was always looked upon as 
an unlucky day. No one who could avoid it entered upon any 
undertaking, began any work, or, especially, got married, on this 
day. Louis XL shunned any discussion of state or social 
matters, and was exasperated beyond measure if any subject of 
the sort were introduced, on Childermas. The coronation of 
Edward lY., which had been set for a Sunday, was postponed to 
Monday when it was found that Sunday fell on December 28. 
Chambers's "Book of Days" informs us that "to the present 
hour we understand that the housewives in Cornwall and prob- 
ably also in other parts of the country refrain scrupulously from 
scouring or scrubbing on Innocents' Day." It was, moreover, 
not considered lucky upon this day to put on new clothes or pare 
the nails. At various places in Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, 
and Worcestershire it is still customary to ring a muffled peal on 
this anniversary. At Norton in the latter county the muffled 
peal for the slaughter of the Innocents is followed by an un- 
muffled peal of joy for the deliverance of the Infant Christ. 
(Notes and Queries^ First Series, vol. viii, p. 617.) 

In Northamptonshire this festival was called " Dyzemas Day." 



654 CURIOSITIES OF 

Miss Baker, in her " Glossary of Northamptonshire Words" 
(1854, vol. i. p. 207), says she was told by a sexagenarian on the 
southern side of the county that within his remembrance this 
day was kept as sacred as the Sabbath, and it was considered 
particularly unlucky to commence any undertaking, or even to 
wash, on the same day of the week throughout the year on 
which the anniversary of this day last fell, and it was commonly 
said, " What is begun on Dyzemas Day will never be finished." 

The source of the ill omened Dyzemas has not been settled : its 
origin has been suggested from Greek dus^ and mass^ as being 
expressive of misfortune, evil, peril, in allusion to the massacre 
of the Innocents. A correspondent of Notes mid Queries (Second 
Series, vol. iii. pp. 289, 495) asks if it has not reference to the 
name Desmas, given to one of the thieves crucified with our 
Lord, — universal tradition seeming to attach Desmas to the peni- 
tent and Gestas (or Yesmas) to the impenitent thief And if the 
local tradition has any reference to these names, it would seem 
as if Desmas was the name of ill omen. It has also been sug- 
gested that Dyzemas Day is tithe day : in Portuguese, dizimas, 
dizimos, "tenths," "tithes;" in law" Latin, decimce, the same. 

The Irish call this La croasta na bliana, " the cross day of the 
year," and Biar dasin darg, or " blood Thursday." On this day 
they will not warp thread nor permit it to be warped, and they 
declare that any undertaking must prove unlucky. In the 
county of Clare a dismal legend is current concerning a white 
thornbush growing on an island in Lake Turlough between the 
parishes of Quin and Tulla. The bush is known as the Scagh an 
Earla, " the earl's bush." A suit of clothes made on Cross day 
was put on a child, who straightway died. A second and a 
third child to whom it was given also died. Then the parents 
put the clothes at high tide on the Scagh an Earla, and when the 
waters fell, the clothes were found full of dead eels. Many sim- 
ilar legends are extant as to the fatality attending anything 
begun on the cross day of the year. (^Notes and Queries^ Fourth 
Series, vol. xii. p. 185.) 

In mediseval England the juvenile members of the family used 
to be reminded of the dismal character of the day by a sound 
whipping administered in bed. This custom endured so late as 
the seventeenth century, for it is mentioned by Gregory : " It 
hath been a custom, and yet is elsewhere, to whip up the chil- 
dren upon Innocents' Day morning, that the memorie of this 
murther might stick the closer ; and, in a moderate proportion, 
to act over the crueltie again in kind." Gregory also states 
another custom, on the authority of an old ritual belonging to 
the abbey of Oseney, communicated to him by his friend Dr. 
Gerard Langbain, the provost of Queen's College, Oxford, from 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 555 

which it appears that at the church of Oseney " they were wont 
to bring out, upon this day, the foot of a child prepared after 
their fashion, and put upon with red and black colors, as to sig- 
nify the dismal part of the day. They put this up in a chest in 
the vestry, ready to be produced at the time, and to be solemnly 
carried about the church to be adored by the people." {I^pis- 
copus Fuerorum in Die Innocentium, 1684, p. 113.) 

So far as the whipping was concerned, it might be avoided by 
the children taking care to rise betimes before their elders ; and 
in fact the whole affair eventually resolved itself into a frolic, in 
which the lively and active, who managed to be first astir, 
amused themselves at the expense of the sluggards by awaking 
them with a sound drubbing administered in bed. It is note- 
worthy that in Wales on St. Stephen's Day, December 26, every- 
body has long been privileged to whip another person's legs with 
holly, and this is often reciprocally done until the blood streams 
down. 

Theologians are fond of pointing out that in the three succes- 
sive anniversaries, St. Stephen's Day on the 26th, St. John the 
Evangelist's Day on the 27th, and Innocents' Day on the 28th 
of December, are comprehended three descriptions of martyrdom, 
all of which have their peculiar efficacy, though differing in 
degree. In the death of St. Stephen an example is furnished of 
the highest class of martyrdom, — that is to say, both in will and 
in deed; St. John the Evangelist, who gave practical evidence 
of his readiness to suffer death for the cause of Christ, though, 
through miraculous interposition, he was saved from actually 
doing so, is an instance of the second description of martyrdom, 
— in will though not in deed; and the slaughter of the Innocents 
affords an instance of martyrdom in deed and not in will, these 
unfortunate children having lost their lives, though involuntarily, 
on account of the Saviour, and it being therefore considered 
" that God supplied the defects of their will by his own accept- 
ance of the sacrifice." 

Isidore the Ploughman, St„. (Sp. Isidro el Labrado ; It. Isi- 
doro Agricola), patron of farmers and of Madrid, where his shrine 
in the church of St. Andrew is an object of enthusiastic devotion. 

The festival of the saint, Ma}^ 15, the anniversary of his death, 
is the most notable of all the holidays of Madrid. Then the 
town puts on its gayest array. The walls of the houses are 
lined with tapestries and colored curtains, flags and banners 
stream in the air, the church bells ring, and a procession winds 
through the streets with military band and cross and lights and 
song of clergy. The objective point of the procession and of all 
good citizens for miles around is the hermitage of the saint on 



556 CURIOSITIES OF 

the banks of the Manzanares, where they spend the entire day 
in noisy frolic. The httle church stands on a bare brown hill. 
All about it is an extemporized village, consisting half of restau- 
rants and half of toy-shops. In these shops are kept little earthen 
pig-bells, whose ringing scares away the thunder, and artificial 
roses with glass handles terminating in a whistle. Thousands 
of whistles are sold and are blown cheerily all day long. In the 
intervals of tooting crowds stream into the oratory of the church 
to kiss a glass-covered relic of the saint which is held in the 
hands of an ecclesiastical attendant. For this privilege they 
drop a penny into a saucer proffered by an acolyte, who follows 
at the heels of the relic-keeper as he makes the rounds of the 
worshippers. 

St. Isidore was born in Madrid about 1110. A day-laborer in 
the employment of Don Juan de Yargas, who owned a farm out- 
side the city, Isidore was pious, hard-working, and faithful. Yet 
he could not escape the tongue of slander. A jealous fellow-ser- 
vant accused him to his master of coming late to his work in 
the morning. So De Yargas rose one morning before daybreak 
and hid himself, to see if Isidore were remiss in his work. He 
was indeed a few minutes late, for with the first dawn in the 
east he had gone to church. When he returned and put his 
hand to the plough De Yargas stepped forth to rebuke him. 
But, lo! in the field was a second plough, drawn by white oxen, 
urged on by an angel. Up the field and down again went the 
strange team, cutting a clean furrow and cutting it rapidly. On 
De Yargas's approach the vision disappeared. Then he ques- 
tioned Isidore as to who were his assistants. "Sir," replied Isi- 
dore, in surprise, " I work alone, and know of none save God, to 
whom I look for aid." This convinced De Yargas that he was 
faithful, and thereafter he admitted the saint to his full confi- 
dence. The story of the angel who helped Isidore with his 
ploughing spread through the country and excited the respectful 
wonder of all who would fain have transferred their daily toil to 
celestial shoulders. For that is exactly the sort of saintship that 
every Spaniard would love to attain. 

Isidore died on May 15, 1170. His remains were buried in the 
yard of St. Andrew's Church, in Madrid, which he had attended 
daily throughout his life. Angels came by night and took up 
the body and reburied it in the church itself. Then all the bells 
rang out untouched by human hands. 

The body is now preserved in the bishop's chapel, and Butler 
informs us that "during these five hundred years" it "remains 
entire and fresh, being honored by a succession of miracles down 
to the present day." 

In desperate cases of sufiicient rank the doctors were wont to 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 557 

throw up the sponge and send for Isidore's urn, and, the drug- 
ging having ceased, the noble patient frequently recovered. 

One of the best authenticated of these miracles was the heal- 
ing of King Philip III., who fell sick at Casambios del Monte 
while returning from Madrid. The king's sickness was so serious 
that his physicians despaired of saving his life. As a last resort 
a " solemn procession" of ecclesiastical, civil, and mihtarj^ digni- 
taries took the shrine of Isidore from Madrid and bore it to 
where the king lay. As the shrine was lifted from its resting- 
place the king's fever left him, and as the shrine was brought 
nearer to him he became better. When it was placed beside his 
bed Philip was cured. The next year Isidore's body was placed 
in a new shrine of cunning design, which cost sixteen hundred 
ducats. 

As the patron of farmers, Isidore is specially invoked in periods 
of prolonged drought, and when the case becomes desperate his 
body is paraded through the streets in solemn procession from 
the church to his hermitage and back again. The last time this 
was done, in May, 1896, rain was vouchsafed at once ; and this 
prompt and gracious affability won for the saint a greater devo- 
tion than ever. 

Isidore was canonized on March 12, 1622, on the same day as 
Ignatius Loyola, Philip Neri, Francis Xavier, and Theresa. 
The event was made one of great rejoicing in Madrid. A poeti- 
cal tournament, still celebrated in the literary annals of Spain, 
was held in the saint's honor. Lope de Yega wrote two sacred 
dramas, or Mystery Plays, about the saint for the day of the 
canonization. These were performed on an extemporized stage 
in the public square, in the presence of King Philip lY. and his 
court. 

Iversky Virgin. A wonder-working image enshrined in a 
small chapel at the Iversky gate in Moscow. It is of the usual 
Byzantine type, dark brown in color, brilliantly dressed and be- 
jewelled, with a crown of precious stones encircling its head. 
When the Czar visits Moscow, the first thing he does is to go and 
worship this image. Every day from morning to night there is 
a throng of people round the door of the chapel, and in front of 
it a double line of mendicant nuns and beggars of various kinds. 
The curious thing about the matter is that the picture in the 
chapel is what theatrical people would call an understudy. And, 
most curious of all, it is an understudy for a copy. To disen- 
tangle this triune personality it should be explained that the 
Iversky Yirgin is a copy made in 1648 from an ikon at Mount 
Athos which is attributed to St. Luke. The copy was brought 
to Russia in 1666, when the chapel for its reception was built by 



568 CURIOSITIES OF 

Catherine II. But it grew into such demand as a visitor to the 
wealthy sick, to great shops, and to monasteries, that it is never 
at home from early morn till late at night, and the understudy 
represents it in the chapel to the thousands of prayerful people 
of all classes who stop to place a candle or utter a prayer. Mean- 
while the first copy is travelling about the town in a blue coach 
adorned with a special device like a coat of arms and drawn by 
six horses. It occupies the seat of honor. On the front seat are 
a priest and a deacon, clad in crimson velvet and gold vestments, 
their heads bare even in the severest weather. The coachman, 
the footman, and the postilion are likewise supposed to keep 
their heads perpetually bared during the journey, but when it is 
very cold they wind woollen shawls of the color of their own 
hair adroitly around their heads, allowing the fringe to hang 
and simulate long locks. As the Yirgin drives along, passers-by 
pause, salute, and cross themselves. (Isabel F. Hapgood : Ram- 
bles in Russia, 1895, p. 321.) 

Ivy Day. The Parnellite name for the annual commemora- 
tion on October 9 of the death of Charles Stuart Parnell (Octo- 
ber 9, 1891). A vast procession goes out from Dublin to visit 
the grave of the dead chief in Glasnevin Cemetery, two miles 
to the northeast of the city. It is composed of the Parnellite 
members of Parliament and other office-holders, of deputations 
from trade and labor societies and from provincial towns, and 
of Parnellite citizens generally. Several bands, all with drums 
draped in black, take part in the proceedings. At the head of 
the procession is a wagonette loaded down with wreaths and 
garlands sent from all parts of the country. On arrival at the 
cemetery these wreaths aie deposited on the grave, whilst the 
assemblage stands uncovered. Then the procession re-forms and 
marches back to Dublin. The ivy is probably selected as a sym- 
bol of Parnell and Ireland because as an evergreen it forms the 
most appropriate and suggestive foil to Disraeli's primrose. (See 
Primrose Day.) 



J- 

Jackson's Day, or Old Hickory's Day. The term popu- 
larly given to the anniversary of the battle of New Orleans, 
which was fought and won by General, afterwards President, 
Andrew Jackson, on January 8, 1815. It is a legal holiday in 
Louisiana, and is celebrated by members of the Democratic 
party throughout the whole country by banquets and speech- 
making. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



559 



James the Great, St. (Lat. Jacobus ; Sp. lago ; It. Giacomo 
or Jacopo ; Fr. Jacques)^ patroD saint of Spain and of pilgrims to 
Jerusalem. His reputed death-day, July 25 (a.d. 42), is one of 
the great national holidays of Spain. 

Si. James was probably the elder brother of St. John the 
Evangelist. He was of note among the twelve, being, with Peter 
and John, one of the three favorite disciples whom Jesus chose 
to witness the raising of the daughter of Jairus, the transfigura- 
tion, and the agony in the garden of Gethsemane. He was put 
to death by Herod Agrippa I. to please the Jews. To these 




Martyrdom of St. James. 



facts of gospel history tradition has added many marvellous 
details. After the Ascension he is said to have gone to Spain to 
preach the gospel (see Pillar, The), and, having established the 
faith there, he returned to meet his death in Jerusalem. His 
disciples placed the saint's body in a ship which angels miracu- 
lously guided to Padron, on the coast of Spain. Here the body 
rested on a stone which hollowed itself out, wax to receive and 
marble to retain. Some theologians, however, hold that it was 
in this stone (still extant, and identified by archaeologists as a 
Eoman sarcophagus) that the saint floated to Padron. The 
country was then governed by a wicked queen named Lupa, who 
ordered saint and stone to be placed on a car drawn by wild bulls. 
But instead of dashing the relics to pieces, as was expected, the 



560 CURIOSITIES OF 

bulls quietly drew the car to the palace of Lupa. Then she was 
converted, and placed the body and the stone in a cave sacred to 
Bacchus. Years rolled on, and the burial-place was forgotten. 
At last, in 800, a hermit named Pelagius, noticing heavenly lights 
always hovering over a certain spot, made investigations which 
resulted in the recovery of the body. Thereupon Alonzo el 
Casto built a church to house it. This gave place to a cathedral 
consecrated May 17, 899. The city of Santiago or Compostella 
rose around it. Numerous miracles had already been performed 
at the shrine, which were capped by the appearance of the saint 
at the battle of Clavijo in 841, where he killed single-handed 
sixty thousand Moors. In gratitude for this service, a bushel 
of wheat from every acre in Spain was annually granted to 
the shrine at Compostella. This tax was not abolished till 
1835. 

The shrine at Compostella was frequented even by those 
Christians who lived among the Moors, and the pilgrims brought 
back minute reports which are thus incorporated in contempo- 
rary Moorish annals (see Moh. D. i. 74, ii. 193) : " Their Kabah 
is a colossal idol, which they have in the centre of the church ; 
they swear by it and repair to it in pilgrimage from the most 
distant parts, from Eome as well as from other countries, pre- 
tending that the tomb which is to be seen within the church is 
that of Yakob (James), one of the twelve apostles, and the most 
beloved of Isa (Jesus), may the blessing of God and salutation 
be on him and on our prophet !" When the Moorish conqueror 
Al-Mansur entered Santiago, August 10, 997, he razed the town 
to the ground, sparing only the tomb of the Spaniards' prophet, 
before which he trembled with a cognate superstition. Never- 
theless the body of the saint disappeared at the advent of the 
infidel, and has never since been found. There is, indeed, a 
legend that when Diego Gelmirez erected the modern cathedral 
of Santiago in 1120 he built the relics into the foundations, in 
order that they might never be pried into by the impertinent 
curioso or be removed by the enemy. Certainly St. James lies 
somewhere, for he was heard clashing his armor when Bona- 
parte invaded Spain, Pilgrimages were stimulated by fresh 
indulgences granted by the Popes to sinners who came with 
oflPerings, and great was the stream of wealthy guilt which 
poured in ; kings gave gold, and even paupers their mite. They 
fell off for a time after the Eeformation, when, according to 
Mohna, " the damned doctrines of the accursed Luther dimin- 
ished the numbers of Germans and wealthy English," and the 
disorderly scenes which were enacted at the shrine finally caused 
their prohibition in Spain, save under regulations. 

Though the Spanish body of St. James has disappeared, there 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 561 

are many other bodies of the saint preserved in Europe, One 
is claimed to have been brought to Toulouse in the fourth cen- 
tury. Another body of St. James is said to have been trans- 
lated into Italy in the fourth century, and now reposes in the 
church of Zibili, near Milan. The heads of St. James are very 
numerous : there is one at Toulouse, while two are at Venice 
(one in the church of St. George, another in the monastery of 
SS. Philip and James). There are a skull and a vessel of the 
saint's blood in the church of the Apostles at Eome, a head at 
Valencia, another at Amalfi, still another at St. Vaast in Artois, 
and part of a head at Pistoja. Bones, hands, and arms of the 
saint are scattered about in great numbers, and are shown at 
Troyes, in Sicily, on the island of Capri, at Pavia, in Bavaria, 
at Liege, at Cologne, and in other places. Some bones of the 
saint are shown in the Escorial. 

Nevertheless it was the shrine at Compostella which was 
famous all over Europe in the Middle Ages. The distinguishing 
badge of pilgrims to this shrine was a scallop-shell worn on the 
cloak or hat. The adoption of this badge is accounted for by 
the old legend on the ground that when the miraculous ship 
bearing St. James's body arrived, at Padron it was encrusted 
with scallop-shells. Erasmus, however, in his " Pilgrimages" 
suggests a less miraculous reason. 

One of his interlocutors meets a pilgrim, and says, " What 
country has sent you safely back to us, covered with shells, laden 
with tin and leaden images, and adorned with straw necklaces, 
while your arms display a row of serpents' eggs?" 

" I have been to St. James of Compostella," replies the pil- 
grim. 

" What answer did St. James give to your professions ?" 

" None ; but he was seen to smile, and nod his head, when 1 
offered my presents ; and he held out to me this imbricated 
shell." 

" Why that shell rather than any other kind ?" 

" Because the adjacent sea abounds in them." 

Curiously enough, a scallop-sl^ell is borne at the present day 
by pilgrims in Japan ; and in all probability its origin as a pil- 
grim's badge, both in Europe and in the East, was derived from 
its use as a primitive cup. dish, or spoon. . This idea is cor- 
roborated by the crest of Dishington, an old English family, 
being a scallop-shell, — a punning allusion to the name and to the 
ancient use of the shell as a dish. And we may add, as a proof 
of the former popularity of pilgrimages to Compostella, that 
seventeen English peers and eight baronets carry scallop-shells 
in their arms as heraldic charges. 

Another curious popular survival in England connects oysters 

36 • 



662 CURIOSITIES OF 

with St. James. It is still customary in London to begin eating 
oysters on his day. Churchill says, — 

July, to whom, witli Dog-star in her train, 
St. James gives oysters, and St. Swithin rain. 

And a local proverb asserts that " He who eats oysters on St. 
James's Day will never want money," which may mean that 
only the wealthy can afford them on this the opening day. But 
what is more immediately to the point is the fact that in the 
course of the few days following upon the introduction of oys- 
ters for the season the children of the humbler class employ 
themselves diligently in collecting the shells which have been 
cast out from taverns and fish-shops, and of these they make 
piles in various rude forms. By the time that old St. James's 
Day (the 5th of August) has come about, they have these little 
fabrics in nice order, with a candle stuck in the top, to be lighted 
at night. As you thread your way through some of the denser 
parts of the metropolis, you are apt to find a cone of shells, 
with its votive light, in the nook of some retired court, with a 
group of youngsters around it, some of whom will be sure to 
assail the stranger with a whining claim, " Mind the grotto !" by 
which is meant a demand for a penny wherewith professedly to 
keep up the candle. It cannot be doubted that in the grotto thus 
made we have a memorial of the world-renowned shrine of St. 
James at Compostella, which may have been formerly erected 
on the anniversary of St. James by poor persons, as an invita- 
tion to the pious who could not visit Compostella to show their 
reverence to the saint by alms-giving to their needy brethren. 
{Book of Bays, vol. ii. p. 122 ; I^otes and Queries, First Series, 
vol. i. p. 6.) 

Januarius, St. (It. Gennaro; Fr. Janvier), patron saint of 
Naples and its protector from the eruptions of Mount Vesuvius. 
He is said to have been a native of Naples, to have become 
Bishop of Benevento, and to have been martyred with several 
companions in the amphitheatre at Pozzuoli, near Naples, on 
September 19, a.d. 305. September 19, therefore, is his day in 
the Eoman Martyrology. Among the Greeks the feast of St. 
Januarius and his companions is celebrated both on that date 
and on April 21. In Naples besides the great festival on Sep- 
tember 19 a minor feast in honor of the translation of St. Jan- 
uarius is celebrated on the first Sunday in May, and another on 
December 16. 

Various fables have clustered around the acts of this martyr. 
A furnace is said to have been heated red-hot for three days, into 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 563 

which St. Januarius was thrown. But he escaped unhurt. Then 
he and two companions were exposed to the beasts in the amphi- 
theatre ; but none would touch them. The people, amazed, im- 
puted their preservation to magic, and the martyrs were con- 
demned to be beheaded. This sentence was executed outside the 
walls of Pozzuoli. A pious woman collected St. Januarius's 
blood in two vials ; in one of them the blood was pure and un- 
mixed, in the other it was mixed with earth. Under the Em- 
peror Constantine, the bones of the martyr were translated to 
Naples and deposited in a church built in his honor outside the 
city walls. The woman who had preserved his blood brought 
the vials to Bishop St. Severus, and when they were placed in 
contact with the saint's skull the congealed blood liquefied. In 
the ninth century Sico, Prince of Benevento, took Naples and re- 
moved the body of St. Januarius to Benevento, where it remained 
until May 2, 1497, when King Ferdinand of Aragon brought it 
back to Naples with great pomp. The skull and the blood, how- 
ever, had always remained in the latter city. 

In 1608 a magnificent chapel dedicated to St. Januarius was 
constructed in the Neapolitan cathedral. Thither the head and 
blood of the saint were transferred. They still remain there. 
The ordinary exposition of the blood is made on the first Sunday 
in May and daily through the octave of May 2, the anniversary 
of the translation, on the 19th of September and daily through 
its octave, and again on December 16, in commemoration of the 
saint's deliverance of the city from a terrible eruption of Yesu- 
vius in 1631. 

Extraordinary expositions are made whenever Naples is threat- 
ened or visited with disaster, pestilence, or volcanic eruption. 
Perhaps the earliest mention in general literature of the miracle 
of the liquefaction occurs in the " Pandectse Medicinales Matthsei 
Silvatici," a book published in 1474 in Naples by the king's sur- 
geon, Angelo Cato. In the dedicatory preface to King Ferdinand 
he uses these words : " What ought I to say of the blood of that 
holy martyr which is preserved at Naples with the greatest 
respect? Is there, among the miracles which in our day take 
place under the eyes of faithful Christians, one more evident, more 
undeniable ? At a distance from the skull the blood remains in 
a solid state ; when brought near to it, it becomes as liquid as 
on the day on which it was shed." The Eev. P. N. Lynch, 
Bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, published five articles on 
the subject (afterwards gathered into book form) in the Catholic 
World of September, 1871-January, 1872, and has covered the 
whole ground of fact and argument from the Eoman point of 
view. He maintains that this phenomenon, which during the 
last two hundred and fifty years has taken place at Naples at 



564 cumosiTiEs OF 

least four thousand times, cannot be accounted for by any natural 
cause, and must therefore be miraculous. 

At rare intervals the blood refused to liquefy. Great was the 
attendant agony of the spectators, great the shock that ran 
through Naples. Some terrible calamity was believed to be 
impending over city or kingdom. " In order that everything 
should go well at Naples," says the Abbe Eichard, author of a 
" Yoyage en Italic" (1766), " it is necessary that the liquefaction 
of the blood of St. Januarius should occur twice a year, in 
September and May. The hour when this miracle should occur 
is approximately known. A great crowd presses into the chapel, 
and demands of the saint, with confused cries, sighs, and beat- 
ings of the breast, that he should perform the miracle. When 
it does not occur with sufficient expedition, a thousand voices are 
raised with impatient and angry cries of ' San Gennaro,fa dunque 
presto /' which is to say, ' St. Januarius, hurry up !' If unhappily 
the miracle does not occur, and the crowd catches sight of some 
stranger whose looks displease them, they believe him to be a 
heretic whose presence has prevented the liquefaction of the 
blood, and the stranger runs great risk of his life. Indeed, 
several cases are recorded of the assassination of strangers 
under such circumstances." 

When General Championnet at the head of a French army 
took possession of Naples in 1799, he heard that the clergy, 
hoping to stir the populace against the invaders, had decided 
that the miracle of St. Januarius should not be performed that 
year. On September 19 he appeared in the cathedral. The 
hour arrived. The blood remained congealed. The populace 
grew restive. The republican general sent one of his aides to 
the officiating priest with this message : " Tell his reverence 
that if the blood does not liquefy in five minutes I will order 
the bombardment of Naples." Long before the five minutes 
were up, the miracle was performed, amid the enthusiastic plau- 
dits of the crowd. 

January. The first month of the year according to the Gre- 
gorian calendar. This position is justified by meteorological 
iact, so far at least as the Northern hemisphere is concerned. 
Inasmuch as its beginning is near the winter solstice, the year 
is thus made to present a complete series of the seasonal changes 
and operations, beginning with the first movements of spring, 
and ending in the death of all vegetation with winter. Yet it 
does not hold that position universally. Numa, indeed, who is 
credited with having introduced it, made it the first month and 
named it after Janus, the deity presiding over doors, hence ap- 
propriately giving title to the opening of the year. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



565 



In the Jewish calendar the year began with March 25, and 
most of the nations of Christendom followed this arrangement 
until they adopted the Grregorian calendar. (See Calendar.) 
In England the year began on Christmas till the accession of 




Jakuaky. Ploughing. 
(From an eleventh-century MS.) 



William the Conqueror, when the date was changed to January 1. 
The Anglo-Saxons called this Wulfmonath, because hunger then 
drove the wolves down into the settlements. 



Jerome, St. (Lat. Hieronymus ; It. Geronimo or Girolamo ; 
Sp. Geronimo ; Fr. Jerome, Hierome^ or Gerosme ; Ger. Hieroni- 
mus), patron saint of scholars and students, and one of the four 
Latin Fathers of the Church. His festival is celebrated on Sep- 
tember 30. 

St. Jerome was born in Stridon about the year 342. He went 
to Eome to complete his studies, and became a lawyer. At the 
age of thirty he was baptized, and went to the East to visit the 
scenes of the hfe of Christ. He then retired to a desert in Ara- 
bia, where he passed several years in study and in doing penance. 
He returned to Eome, where he preached for three years against 
the luxury of the Eoman clergy and laity. He then retired to 
a monastery at Bethlehem, and here he died in 420. It was in 
this monastery that he made his famous translation of the New 
Testament into Latin, which has ever since been known as the 
Yulgate. The attributes of St. Jerome in art are books, illustra- 
tive of his writings, and a lion, emblematic of the boldness of 
the saint. There is also a legend that accounts for the associa- 
tion of the lion with this saint. It is related that while at the 
monastery at Bethlehem the saint saw a lion limping as if in 
pain. All others fled in terror, but Jerome approached the lion 
and extracted a thorn from its paw. The grateful lion refused 
to leave the saint, who made the beast guard an ass which 
brought wood from a forest. One day a caravan of merchants 
passed, and- they stole the ass while the Hon slept. The lion 
returned to the convent with an air of shame, and Jerome, who 
believed that the lion had eaten the ass, set the beast to work in 
the ass's place. At length the caravan passed by again, and the 



566 CURIOSITIES OF 

lion, recognizing his old companion, drove the ass and all the 
camels into the monastery. Whereupon the merchants acknow- 
ledged their theft and were pardoned. 

St. Jerome was buried at Bethlehem, but his body was said 
to have been translated to the church of Santa Maria Mag- 
giore at Eome in the thirteenth century. A head of the saint 
is shown at Nepi, part of the chin at the Vatican, part of a thigh 
in the church of St. Cecilia, and an arm in the Jesuit church. 
A jaw and an arm are shown at Florence, at Bologna part 
of a shank, a finger, and a thumb, part of the skull at Cluny, 
a finger at Paris, an arm at Malines, two bones at Tournai, 
a finger at Prague, part of the spine at Cologne in the church 
of St. Pantaleon, and in the Carthusian church a rib. The 
head entire is preserved at the Escorial ; the tongue is shown 
on the island of Samos ; and various other relics are scattered 
about. 

The fete of San Geronimo is the harvest festival of the Pueblo 
Indians in New Mexico. It is celebrated annually at the Pueblo 
de Taos with ceremonies that are a strange mixture of Catholic 
ritual and ancestral pagan superstitions. Indians from all the 
Pueblos, as well as a considerable number of Apaches and Utes 
from their more distant reservations, and a sprinkling of Mexi- 
cans, meet together this day. Many different stories are told of 
the origin of the feast. One is that hundreds of years ago a 
chief of the tribe wandered away into the mountains and never 
returned, and in memory of this all absent Pueblos come home 
on this day. But it is possible that the Indians have mixed up 
their own traditions with the priestly legend of St. Jerome's 
wandering and fasting in the desert. At all events, the image 
of St. Jerome forms a prominent feature. Early in the morning 
all who can spare the time from the preparations for the day's 
sports meet in the village church, where the image is blessed, 
and then borne forth, by girls chosen for the honor, to the 
judges' stand. There are three judges, one from each clan and 
the third selected from among the Apache visitors. The con- 
testants, lightly clad and with gayly painted bodies, line up in 
front of the judges, and move past sideways, chanting a wild, 
gay air. A half-dozen medicine-men follow the runners of each 
clan, groom them, pat their muscles, and cheer them with pre- 
dictions of success. The men march in this fashion past the 
pueblo buildings crowded with spectators. At a signal all the 
young athletes take their places, fifteen from each side being at 
either end of a course of about seven hundred yards. When 
all are ready, the judges give the word. Two men dart from 
the end of the course nearest the pueblo and run swiftly down 
to the other end. The instant the leader reaches the stone post 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 567 

marking the end of the course, another runner from his side, 
who has nicely calculated his exact time, rushes past him on the 
homeward stretch, followed at the distance between the first 
two runners by another athlete from the competing clan. Thus 
the race is kept up until all have had a trial, the final victory 
beiiiiT the glory of the clan and not of the individual runner. 
The result shows which side shall bear the statue of San Ge- 
ronimo into its pueblo. (^Harper's Young People, October 3, 1893, 
p. 829.) Other games of less imminent interest occupy the in- 
tervals during the day. A lamb with its legs tied together is 
hoisted up a pole sixty feet in the air and left to hang there for 
some hours as an offering, it is said, to Montezuma. The Mex- 
icans practise their favorite game of riding after and trying 
to catch chickens without dismounting. A hundred horsemen 
dash madly up and down before the Pueblo after one poor 
chicken, and if three or four riders seize it at the same time 
it is instantly torn to pieces amid the shouts of the crowd. 
Masked Indians run around playing tricks upon spectators, 
sousing boys into the streams, stealing fruit from the stands of 
the traders, and throwing dust. 

John the Baptist, St. (Fr. Jean ; It. Giovanni ; Ger. Johann), 
patron saint against convulsions and epilepsy, which are called 
in France and Belgium le mal St.- Jean. The day of his behead- 
ing by order of Herodias, which is ecclesiastically known as th© 
Decollation, is commemorated in the Western calendar on Au- 
gust 29, in the Eastern on September 26. But the great festival 
of the saint, botli East and West, is that of his nativity, on June 
24, or Midsummer Day. 

This festival has been celebrated by the Church from a remote 
age. In the fifth century St. Augustine wrote, " This day of the 
nativity is handed down to us and is this day celebrated. We 
have received this by tradition from our forefathers, and we 
transmit it to our descendants to be celebrated with like devo- 
tion." He observes that the birthday in lieu of the death-day 
of the saint is chosen because ijhis saint was sanctified in his 
mother's womb. 

A mystical significance and an infinite number of pagan sur- 
vivals have crystallized around this holiday from its position in 
the calendar. For in the months of June and December occur 
the solstices. With the summer solstice the days reach their 
maximum of length, and thenceforth decrease until the minimum 
is reached with the winter solstice, when they once more 
increase. In connection with this fact the words of the Baptist, 
" He must increase, but I must decrease," acquire a new and 
fanciful meaning. St. Augustine says, " At the Nativity of 



568 CURIOSITIES OF 

Christ the days increase in length, on that of John they de- 
crease. When the Saviour of the world is born, the days 
lengthen ; but when the last prophet comes into the world, the 
days suffer curtailment." 

But long before the dawn of Christianity the period of the 
summer solstice was almost universally associated with the rites 
of sun-worship. Pagan customs survived in the Christian festival. 
Some of these customs were the subjects of ecclesiastical pro- 
hibition. St. Augustine forbade the inhabitants of Libya from 
bathing on the eve of St. John's Day, as a pagan custom. 
Petrarch in a letter addressed to Cardinal Colonna describes how 
in 1330 the women of Cologne were wont at sunset on the eve of 
St. John to wash their arms and feet in the Ehine, thinking that 
thus they washed off all the potential ills of the year to come. 
This custom still survives in the Walloon country. St. Eligius 
forbade those whom he had converted in Gaul to celebrate St. 
John's Eve with round dances and other pagan customs, and the 
fourth canon of the Council of Leptines, or Lestines, in 743, 
prohibited the pagan custom of making new fire on this day by 
rubbing two sticks together. The usage of burning Beltane fires 
(see May-Day) has continued from paganism to the present day, 
and is observed on Midsummer Eve nearly all through Europe. 
But the solar origin of the custom is forgotten, and the practice 
is justified by the text " He was a burning and a shining light," 
words used by Christ to qualify the Baptist. 

In France Da Saint Jean was formerly celebrated both in town 
and in country. It did not disappear from Paris until the Eevolu- 
tion. On the Place de Greve a tree was raised, and royalt}^ itself 
came in solemn state to set fire to " St. John's tree." Louis XIY. 
was the last king who took part in this ceremony, and he did so 
only once. When the tree was burnt out, the people carefully 
gathered up the ashes and brought them home as harbingers of 
good fortune. A cruel practice that lasted until the eighteenth 
century was to hang up a sack or basket full of cats in the 
branches of the burning tree. In the register of the city of 
Paris may be read this memorandum : " Paid to Lucas Pom- 
mereux, one of the commissaires of the quays, 100 sous for 
having furnished during the three years ending on St, John's 
Day, 1573, all the cats that were needed for the fire, according 
to custom, and also for having furnished, last year, when the 
king assisted, a fox to give pleasure to his majesty, likewise for 
having furnished a large cloth sack wherein the said cats were 
gathered." 

In Brittany the Baalfires blaze on every hill on the eve of La 
Saint Jean. All night the peasants dance around them, clad in 
their holiday clothes, to the sound of the binion (a sort of rustic 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 569 

hautboy) and the shepherd's horn. The girl who dances round 
nine St. John's fires before midnight is sure to be married within 
the year. In many parishes the curate himself goes in procession 
with banner and cross to light the sacred fire. 

In England and Scotland, and even in Ireland, the Beltane 
fires, where they survive at all, are usuall}' lighted on May-Day, 
rather than on Midsummer Eve. But in Wales midsummer is 
preferred. 

In remote and primitive districts the people still believe that 
dancing in a ring around a bonfire or leaping through its flames 
is calculated to insure good luck to the performers, and to serve 
as a protection from witchcraft and other malign influences 
during the ensuing year. 

In Servia the people believe that out of respect to the memory 
of St. John the sun three times stands still in the sky on the 
feast of his nativity. 

The shepherds at this time of the year go round their sheep- 
folds and enclosures, carrying torches formed of the resinous 
bark of the birch-tree ; then they go up to the hills, where they 
allow the torches to burn themselves out, while they give them- 
selves over to frolic and amusement. 

Bonfires are still lighted in many parts of Germany on Mid- 
summer Eve. On either side of the bonfire poles are erected, 
the tops of the poles being joined by a wire or rope, from which 
are suspended prizes, — hams, sausages, neckties, pipes, etc. The 
young men of the neighborhood assemble in numbers to compete 
for the prizes. Each competitor, mounted on a horse, must ride 
at the bonfire, and while the horse is in the act of jumping over 
it, his rider has to try to snatch a prize from overhead. The 
sport is kept up until late at night, when the feast is concluded 
with a carouse at the village inn. 

In Spain, as John Hay tells us, St. John's Eve is celebrated 
with noisy festivities by the light of moon and stars and gas. A 
feature of the occasion are the bunuelos, or fritters, which are 
cooked and consumed on this night to the number of hundreds 
of thousands in Madrid alone. A]l over the Prado may be seen 
the bunuelo-stands. A great caldron of boiling oil is hung over 
a fire, beside it is a mighty bowl of dough. " The bunolero with 
the soft precision of machinery dips his hand into the bowl, and 
makes a delicate ring of the tough dough, which he throws into 
the bubbling caldron. It remains but a few seconds, and his 
grimy acolyte picks it out with a long wire and throws it on the 
tray for sale. They are eaten warm, the droning cry continually 
sounding, ' Bunuelos ! Calientitos !' It is like a vast gitano- 
camp. The hurrying crowd which is going nowhere, the blazing 
fires, the cries of the venders, the songs of the majos under the 



570 



CURIOSITIES OF 






great trees of the Paseo, the purposeless hurly-burly, and, above, 
the steam of the boiling oil and the dust raised by the myriad 
feet, form together a striking and vivid picture." (John Hay: 
Gastilian Days^ pp. 107, 108.) 

John the Evangelist, St. The Church commemorates the 
death-day of this saint on December 27, and fixes the year 




St. John received at the Temple. 
(From " Historia S. Joaiinis Evangeiisise," Holztafeldruck, 1465.) 

at A.D. 101. According to the traditions which supplement the 
New Testament story, he remained at Jerusalem until the death 
of the Yirgin, and then preached the gospel in Asia Minor, living 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 571 

chiefly at Ephesus. In the persecution of Domitian he was 
taken to Rome. He was plunged into a caldron of boiling oil, 
but received no injury. On the scene of this miracle, which is 
just outside the Latin gate, stands the chapel of San Giovanni 
in Olio. He drank a cup of poison at the command of the Em- 
peror, but the poison likewise had no effect. This cup is exhib- 
ited on great occasions in the church of Santa Croce at Eome. 
Then he was sent to labor in the mines at Patmos, where he is 
believed to have written his Revelations, which are traditionally 
said to have been manifested to him on a Sunday in the year 96. 
With l!^erva's accession he was set at liberty, and returned to 
Ephesus, where he died. An ancient tradition asserted that he 
never died in the ordinary sense, but was assumed into heaven. 
This belief was ably confuted by St. Jerome and St. Augustine, 
and is now rejected by the Church. The received opinion is that 
he was buried on a mountain just outside the walls of Ephesus. 
Enthusiastic pilgrims gradually carried away his dust, which 
was found to be efficacious for various diseases. Butler informs 
us that a " stately church stood formerly over this tomb, which 
is at present a Turkish mosque." 

Jordan, Fete of the, or Benediction of the Waters of 

the Neva, in St. Petersburg. An imposing ceremony at which 
the Czar of Russia officiates with his court on the Epiphany 
(January 6). Religious pomp joins with military glory to en- 
hance its brilliancy. A pavilion, richly decorated, is built on the 
frozen river. A hole is bored through the ice to admit of the 
cross being dipped into the waters, which are solemnly blessed 
by the metropolitan and his clergy with prayers that they may 
be beneficial to man and fertilizing to the earth during the en- 
suing year. These prayers are accompanied by liturgical hymns 
sung by the choirs of the Winter Palace. Up to the end of the 
reign of Nicholas 1. tradition demanded that the Emperor should 
follow the procession bareheaded and without cloak, the mem- 
bers of his household all following his example. Even the ladies 
in the palace used to go down into the snow decolletees, their 
delicate arms and bosoms exposed to the rigorous temperature. 
At present the old usages have become modified, and cloaks are 
tolerated. There was even a time when the ceremony gave oc- 
casion to explosions of fanaticism. As soon as the priest had 
plunged his crucifix in the river, mujiks would break holes in 
the ice and throw themselves into the sanctified waters, with the 
persuasion that they had acquired the power of washing away 
their sins and curing all their bodily ills. 

The Don, the Yolga, and minor streams are likewise blessed on 
the same day by the local clergy of the river-side towns, and at 



572 CURIOSITIES OF 

many places the custom of bathing in the icy waters still sur- 
vives in all its original fury. The London Lancet in 1896 pub- 
lished a description of such a scene in the town of Sviaga, on 
the Yolga : " From ten until one o'clock there was an endless 
succession of bathers of all ages, some even bringing children as 
young as seven and dipping them into the river through the 
broken ice. They all undressed and dressed on the banks, or on 
the ice in the centre of the river, where some enthusiasts bored 
a hole through the ice and plunged in, with the additional risk 
of being carried away by the current." 

Joseph, St. (Lat. Josephus ; It. Giuseppe; Ger. Josef .) His 
festival is celebrated on March 19. 

But little is related of St. Joseph in the Gospel. He was of the 
lineage of David and the tribe of Judah, and dwelt in Nazareth, 
where he followed the trade of a carpenter. Legends add that 
he was old and a widower when he married Mary, and assert 
that there were many suitors for her hand, who assembled at the 
call of the priest Zacharias and deposited their staves or wands 
in the temple for a night. For it had been revealed to Zacha- 
rias that God would show a sign as to who should be the hus- 
band of Mary. In the morning it was discovered that Joseph's 
wand had budded into leaves and flowers, and a white dove is- 
sued from it, showing him to be the chosen one. The other 
suitors broke their wands in despair, and one of them, Agabus, 
fled to Mount Carmel and became an anchorite. In many pictures 
the espousals took place in the open air, outside the temple, for 
with the Jews marriage was a civil contract rather than a re- 
ligious ceremony. 

The next appearance of St. Joseph in the legends is on the 
journey to Bethlehem, when looking back Joseph saw that the 
face of Mary betokened weariness and pain, but when he looked 
again she smiled. When they came to Bethlehem Joseph sought 
a midwife, but when they came to the stable Mary was sitting 
with her infant on her knees, and the place was filled with light 
brighter than the day. Four times angelic messengers appeared 
to guide St. Joseph in his mission. A dream assured him of the 
purity of Mary; another dream commanded him to flee into 
Egypt ; the third vision told Joseph to return to Judsea, and a 
fourth guided him on his journey. After the return to l!^azareth 
Joseph is associated only with a quiet domestic life. The time 
of his death is a disputed point. Some assert that it occurred 
when Jesus was nine years old, while others make it nine years 
later. The 20th of July had been observed in the East as the 
anniversary of Joseph's death before he became popular in 
the West. In art he is represented as the caretaker and guide 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



573 



during the journey into Egypt, and in pictures of the Holy 
Family he is generally in an attitude of quiet and contemplative 
admiration. 

Jubilee. This word, generally used at present to denote the 
,8emi-centennial celebration of some important event, does not 
come from the Latin jubilare, " to shout for joy," though ety- 
mologists have frequently fallen into this not unnatural pitfall, 
but from the Jewish yobel, meaning literally the blast of a 
trumpet, and, by extension, the year of jubilee which was an- 
nounced by this blast. According to the law in Leviticus xxv., 
this was a semi-centennial epoch of general restoration and 
emancipation, when liberty was to be proclaimed through the 




Proclaiming a Papal Jubilee. 
(From Picart.) 



land with the blowing of trumpets in the synagogue. The year 
of jubilee was the fiftieth year, each being separated from its pre- 
decessor by seven sabbaths of years, — i.e., 7 X 7 = 49. During 
the jubilee year the land was not tilled, all lands that had been 



674 CURIOSITIES OF 

sold were restored to the original owners or their heirs, and all 
bondsmen of Hebrew blood were liberated. 

The design is supposed to have been the maintenance of a 
kind of balance between different tribes and families, to prevent 
the growth of a few rich land-owners amidst a generally impov- 
erished community, and to increase alike the growth of popula-, 
tion and the fiertility of the soil. The system is known to have 
been adopted for a time; but commentators differ in opinion 
ahke as to the period of its practical adoption and the period 
when it fell into disuse. 

The Christian Church adopted the term jubilee from the Jew- 
ish, and the jubilee in two forms, the ordinary and the extraor- 
dinary, is still an institution in the Eoman Church as a period 
of remission from the penal consequences of sin. Extraordinary 
jubilees are proclaimed on specially important occasions. The 
ordinary jubilee is now granted once in twenty-five years. The 
institution dates from the pontificate of Boniface YIII., who in 
1300 issued a bull in honor of the new century, granting a plenary 
indulgence to all pilgrim visitors of Eome during that year on 
condition of their penitently confessing their sins and visiting 
the church of St. Peter and St. Paul fifteen times if they were 
strangers and thirty times if residents of the city. Boniface's 
plan was that of a centennial celebration, but the period was 
shortened successively to fifty, forty -three, and twenty-five years, 
where it remains at present. For the pilgrimage to Eome have 
now been substituted certain works of charity and devotion. 

The bull announcing a jubilee is published on the Ascension 
Day preceding the beginning of the jubilee year. The publica- 
tion takes place in the Sistine Chapel after the Pope has cele- 
brated the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. An apostoli- 
cal subdeacon reads the Latin bull to the Papal court, and another 
subdeacon reads the Italian translation to the people. As soon 
as the reading is over, the twelve trumpeters in ordinary to the 
Pope commence to blow a blast, and a few minutes later twelve 
hunters join in with the ringing of their silver bugles, and 
simultaneously the artillery of the castle of St. Angelo discharges 
a salute. 

On the fourth Sunday of Advent the apostolical subdeacons 
again publish the bull of the jubilee, and on the three days im- 
mediately preceding the Christmas festivals the bells of the city 
announce from all sides the solemn jubilee season which is to 
open on the morrow. 

The 24th day of November in the Holy Year all the secular 
and regular clergy assemble in the Apostolic Palace, and thence 
go in procession to St. Peter's Church. But when the clergy 
have arrived in the great square facing the church they find the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 575 

doors of this church closed, and all the entrances to the portico 
occupied by guards who prevent the crowds from entering. 




Depakture of the Cardinals. 

Meanwhile the Pope, the cardinals, and the bishops in white 
vestments with their mitres on their heads assemble in the Sistine 
Chapel, where his Holiness intones the " Yeni Creator Spiritus," 
holding in his hand a lighted wax taper. He then names three 
cardinals as Legates a Latere and despatches them to open the 
doors of St. John Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore, and St. Paul 
Outside the Walls. These cardinals, after having received on 
their knees the command of his Holiness, go in state to these 
churches, preceded by trumpeters, oboe-players, and troops of 
people armed, if one might say ^o, half in the panoply of war 
and half in that of religion. (Picart, vol. i. p. 171.) 

But they do not take their departure until the Pope has opened 
the Holy Door of the Sistine Chapel which leads into St. Peter's. 
A prelate presents him with a golden hammer, which he takes 
in his right hand. Followed by his clergy, he approaches the 
door and strikes it three times, saying, " Aperite mihi portas jus- 
titiae" (" Open for me the doors of justice"), to which the clergy 
respond, " This is the eternal door which the just shall enter." 
Meanwhile the master masons set to work in removing the little 



576 CURIOSITIES OF 

wall which has temporarily closed the Holy Door. When this 
has been torn down and the bricks have been distributed as 
relics among the spectators, the Penitents of St. Peter's sweep 
the doorway clean with their brooms. Then the Pope and the 
clergy march singing into St. Peter's Church, where the immense 
crowds have by this time been admitted. The jubilee ends by 
the closure of the Holy Doors. They are walled up again, in 
the presence of the Pope, the cardinals, and the clergy, on 
Christmas Eve one year after the jubilee opening. His Holiness 
lays the first stone in its place. 

From Jews and Catholics the term jubilee passed into general 
use to indicate celebrations which had nothing to do with either 
Jerusalem or Eome, but commemorated the completion of some 
important historical, literary, or religious cycle, usually of fifty 
years, but sometimes more and sometimes less, and was subse- 
quently extended to any monster celebration, independent of 
dates. 

The royal jubilees in England are examples of the use of the 
word in its more legitimate sense. Only four of England's 
monarchs have hved to rule for fifty years : Henry III., who sat 
on the throne for fifty-six years ; Edward III., who lived for six 
months after completing his jubilee ; George III., who ruled for 
fifty-nine years ; and Queen Victoria, who has outstripped all her 
predecessors. 

Eespecting the celebration of Henry's fifty years' rule very 
little is recorded ; but concerning that of Edward we learn that 
" he laid hold of that era as the occasion of his performing many 
popular acts of government ; that he had given orders to issue 
out general and special pardons without paying any fees, for 
recalling all exiles, and setting at hberty all debtors to the crown 
and all prisoners for political matters." The Parliament, on 
their parts, not to be wanting in gratitude, having presented 
their petitions, on the day of their rising voted the king a duty 
of twenty-six shillings and eightpence on every sack of wool for 
three years, besides continuing the former duties upon avooIs, 
fells, and skins. The whole jubilee year (1377) was spent by 
the nobility in hunting through the great forests of England and 
in other magnificent diversions on which the king laid out an 
immense sum. 

Particulars as to how George III.'s jubilee was celebrated are 
necessarily more plentiful. How best to commemorate it caused 
no little preliminary concern to his majesty's subjects. The 
occasion was indeed an auspicious one, for a like occurrence had 
not taken place in England for nearly four and a half centuries. 

George III. himself pointed the way by many gracious acts. 
He was the chief subscriber to a fund for liberating all persons 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 577 

confined for debt in the United Kingdom, he granted free pardon 
to all deserters from the army or navy and to all prisoners of 
war save only the French, and granted brevet promotions to 
officers in the army and navy. 

Strictly speaking, the actual day of the jubilee ceremonies was 
at the end of forty-nine years, not fifty. The reign began 
October 25, 1760, and the jubilee was held October 25, 1809, the 
day that completed the forty-ninth and commenced the fiftieth 
year of his reign. This corresponded so far with the ancient 
Hebrew period. 

At Windsor, on this occasion, the morning was ushered in by 
the mustering of troops, the firing of cannon, and the sound of 
trumpets and drums. The king, the queen, and other members 
of the royal family attended divine service ; and congratulations 
afterwards poured in from various quarters. 

At one o'clock the queen, with a brilliant retinue, and the 
mayor and corporation of Windsor, walked to the Bachelors' 
Acre, — a large piece of vacant ground near the centre of the 
town, — where an ox and some sheep were roasting whole, the 
former having been put on the spit at two o'clock in the morn- 
ing, so that it might be cooked by one in the afternoon. The 
royal party were received by fifty bachelors, who conducted them 
to the fire at which the ox was roasting, after which they 
inspected the culinary arrangements. The butchers who had 
charge of the cooking of the ox and sheep, the latter of which 
were put on the fire at nine o'clock, and were stuffed with 
potatoes, were (shade of Beau Brummel !) dressed in blue frocks 
and silk stockings. When the animals were ready, they were 
distributed among the crowd in the presence of the royal party, 
who were offered and graciously accepted the first slices, the 
same being served up to. them on silver plates by the butchers 
and bachelors. 

At Frogmore an entertainment of brilliant gayety was given 
by the queen in the evening. The gardens were lighted up with 
lamps innumerable ; the walks and avenues were thronged with 
the nobility and gentry ; transparencies and tiny temples were 
visible at various points ; fireworks blazed up with great splen- 
dor; and on a small lake or piece of water in front of the house 
two triumphal cars drawn by two sea-horses each, one car con- 
taining a figure of Neptune and the other a figure of Britannia, 
moved majestically on the bosom of the waters, followed by four 
boats filled with persons dressed to represent Tritons, etc. These 
last were to have been composed of choristers, who were to have 
sung " God Save the King" on the water, but, unfortunately, the 
crowd assembled was so immense that those who were to have 
sung could not gain entrance. 

37 



578 



CURIOSITIES OF 



Like celebrations took place in the various towns throughout 
the countrj'^, the proceedings in each instance to a great exteni 
necessarily resembling each other. The day was generally ob- 
served as a national holiday ; and in almost all corporate towns] 
a civic procession to the church or cathedral was one of the! 
chief features of the occasion ; whilst in those places in which! 
military were stationed, numerous volleys were fired by the sol-j 
diers in honor of the event. Feasting was indulged in to anj 
enormous extent by all classes, the poor being entertained by 
their more wealthy neighbors ; and the inauguration of charitable! 
institutions and benevolent societies was a characteristic of the] 
jubilee. In keeping with the custom of the times, ox-roastingsj 
took place all over the country ; and "good old ale" was distrib- 
uted with the greatest lavishness. In rural districts, most of 
the nobility and gentry kept open house and provided entertain- 
ments for their poorer neighbors ; employers feasted their ser- 
vants, and "The King, and long life to him," was toasted with] 
the utmost enthusiasm throughout the land. Dancing was 
carried on upon the village green ; and balls, bonfires, and pyro- 
technic displays concluded the rejoicings of a day on which highl 
and low, rich and poor, had vied with one another in showing! 
loyalty to their sovereign. 

The jubilee in honor of Queen Victoria's semi-centennial was] 
celebrated on June 20, 1887, and was an even more triumphant 
success than that of George III. As the Saturday Review said 
on the succeeding June 25, " Never in modern times has therel 
been in this country a court pageant to compare in splendor and] 
stateliness with that of last Tuesday ; and no less indisputable is] 
it that London, the London which we know, or our fathers] 
remember, has never adorned and illuminated her league-long] 
thoroughfares with anything like the abundance of decoration) 
and the glory of gaslight with which the}' have been glowing] 
daily and blazing nightly throughout the week. Above all, it isl 
a fact as completely and much more importantly beyond question] 
that the great ceremonial in the Abbey, after Corinthian eloquence | 
has done its worst on the historical, political, and poetic aspects] 
of the scene, stands out before us still with all its majesty unim- 
paired. The Queen receiving the homage of her children and] 
grandchildren on the most historically venerable spot of English i 
ground, and after solemn investiture in the royal robes which 
she assumed half a century ago to enter upon'the happiest and, 
for her own share in it, the most beneficent reign in our history,! 
— this we feel to be a spectacle which still appeals with undimin-l 
ished force to our pride of patriotism, to our reverence for 
antiquity, to our respect for faithfulness in the discharge of thej 
highest of national duties, and, lastly, to that combination of aUj 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 579 - 

these instincts with the added feeling of personal regard which 
goes to make up the modern and, so to say, ' rationalistic,' but 
none the less powerful, enduring, and politically valnable, senti- 
ment of loj^alty to the crown." 

The Diamond Jubilee of 1897 celebrated the completion of the 
sixtieth year of Queen Victoria's reign, — the longest in English 
history. 

Where is the thing to end ? Not a day but might be made 
out by adventurers in chronology, especially by the students of 
M. Comte's calendar, to be the fiftieth, or one-hundi'edth, or five- 
hundredth anniversary of somebody's birth or somebody's death 
who has won his place in the Valhalla of Memory. There is no 
single year in the eighteenth century in which some eminent 
individual will not be found to have been born, to have died, or, 
at the worst, to have flourished. 

Judas in Effigy. The burning, hanging, or scourging of 
effigies of Judas Iscariot was once a common practice during 
Holy Week in certain portions of Spain, and still survives in 
Mexico, as well as in Portugal and all countries where Portuguese 
blood predominates. It is also practised by Portuguese sailors 
in whatever port they may happen to be at the appropriate date. 
This is sometimes Good Friday and sometimes Holy Saturday, 
while sometimes the agony is prolonged through both days. 
The Cork Examiner in 1868 described a scourging publicly 
administered to Judas on Good Friday. The traitor was- led 
through the streets in a solemn procession, twenty men marching 
in front singing an " epithalamium," as the reporter has chosen 
to call it. The eflftgy of Judas was laid upon an open bier ar- 
ranged in the blue shirt and long boots of a stevedore. On re- 
turning to the ship the effigy was hung to the yard-arm and fired 
into with pistols. 

The following extract is taken from the London Times (April 
5, 1874) : " At daybreak of Good Friday a block of wood, roughly 
carved to imitate the Betrayer, and clothed in an ordinary sailor's 
suit, with a red worsted cap on its head, was hoisted by a rope 
round its neck into the fore-rigging ; the crews of the various 
vessels then went to chapel, and on their return, about eleven 
A.M., the figure was lowered from the rigging, and cast into the 
dock, and ducked three times. It was then hoisted on board, 
and after being kicked round the deck was lashed to the capstan. 
The crew, who had worked themselves into a state of frantic ex- 
citement, then with knotted ropes lashed the effigy till every 
vestige of clothing had been cut to tatters. During this process 
the ship's bell kept up an incessant clang, and the captains of 
the ships served out grog to the men. Those not engaged in the 



580 CURIOSITIES OF 

flogging kept up a sort of rude chant intermixed with denuncia- 
tions of the Betrayer. The ceremony ended with the burning 
of the Q^gy amid the jeers of the crowd." 

In Lisbon itself the ceremony is kept up with infinite gusto. 
Good Friday is there a day of silence and mourning. The hun- 
dreds of bell-towers hold their brazen tongues, military bands, 
church organs, and pianos are stilled. The whole city sinks inlo 
penitential silence. 

With sunrise on Saturday things stir outside. A mysterious 
activity begins on the streets, and the Portuguese street-urchin 
offers to contribute his last ten reis towards the universal pleasure. 
"Judas" is the order of the day, and the Betrayer appears in 
thousands of varieties in Q^gy. There is scarcely a house in 
front of which there is not a grotesquely attired figure, of life 
size, with a hideous face and a long beard, set upon a funeral 
pile. And not only at houses and gardens do we find them, but 
also high up in the air on ropes drawn across the streets hang 
the fantastical images and caricatures of the lost one. Here and 
there some pitiful soul has added a woman for company, so that 
he shall not be alone in the dread hour which is in store for him. 

The multitude crowd each other in the streets ; rich and poor, 
old and young, are crushed together. With impatience they 
await the great moment. At last the bell of the Se, the beauti- 
ful, grand cathedral, rings forth a warning of the approach of 
Easter, and then arise an unexampled noise, a shouting, a re- 
joicing, a laughing, and a cannonade which mocks that of Metz 
and Sedan. 

The bodies of the unfortunate Judases are filled with powder 
and straw ; they explode with dreadful noise, and immediately 
all the Judases are consumed by the flames. In a few minutes 
the whole city is naturally enveloped in the^ thickest smoke, and 
those possessing the sense of smell quickly flee homeward, or 
possibly out as far as the blue sea to breathe fresh air again. 
When the fun is over the streets are in great disorder, and it is 
difficult work during the few remaining afternoon hours to give 
the city a holiday air. 

In the island of Madeira, a Portuguese dependency, Judas was 
officially abolished in 1889, because it had become more and more 
the custom to make the effigy resemble some official upon whom 
the people had ceased to smile. When it was a foreign consul 
that was caricatured the government smiled, when it was the 
mayor of Funchal it frowned, and finally when the august dignity 
of the governor of Funchal was subjected to contumely it sup- 
pressed the custom altogether. 

Judas is hanged and burnt all over South America. The only 
place in North America where the custom survives is Mexico. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 581 

On Good Friday the effigies make their appearance. The apostle 
is held up to public loathing in an infinite variety of ways. In 
all the plazas of the city booths are erected, where grotesque 
figures, usually made of pasteboard and attired in gaudy-colored 
paper costumes, are hung on a line awaiting purchasers. They 
are designed to represent the man who betrayed Christ. The 
more hideous the physiognomy and shape the more certain that 
particular Judas is to find a purchaser. There are also sold 
numerous children's toys, about which there is always some 
grim suggestion of the fate that befell the recreant apostle. The 
most common of these are crudely made little wagons, to be 
drawn by the child through the street, to the axles of which 
are attached flexible strips of wood, that strike against the 
wheels in such a way as to give out a loud, clacking sound. 
This is intended to represent the cracking of the bones of Judas 
in eternal torment. 

On Holy Saturday morning in Mexico city your eyes are kept 
even busier than your ears. Whichever way you may walk you 
see in all the streets much the same strange sights. In every 
block a line is stretched across the street from house to house, 
and a hideous effigy is hanging there like a lynched felon. It is 
Judas again, — Judas everywhere! He hangs there limp and 
ugly, swaying in the breeze, and groups of women and children 
shout defiance at him from below, while waiting impatiently for 
the signal of the poor wretch's final doom. It comes instan- 
taneously in all parts of the city. The first stroke of twelve 
on the big cathedral clock consigns the thousands of swinging 
figures to the flames. 

All Mexico turns out to witness the wild scenes that ensue on 
the moment of noon. The biggest throngs are always gathered 
in front of the Jockey Club, on San Francisco Street, the prin- 
cipal thoroughfare of the city. Here the ceremony consists of 
something more than the simple burning of a paper effigy. 
Judas himself is accorded the distinction of more elaborate 
paraphernalia. He is represented sitting astride a horse. His 
steed is only pasteboard, but its Accoutrements are real. There 
is a real bridle on the horse's head, and a handsome Mexican 
saddle, ornamented with silver trappings, holds the cavalier, who 
is himself dressed in a genuine charro costume, with a stripe 
formed of silver dollars on his trousers. He wears handsome 
riding-boots mounted with silver spurs, and on his head is a gor- 
geous sombrero with a silver band. Nor is this all that entitles 
the brilliant Judas to the attention of the waiting crowd below. 
He and his horse have been fed on silver coins until they are 
fat with the diet. 

No wonder the shouting and struggling multitude are impa- 



582 CURIOSITIES OF 

tient for the coming of noon ! At last a servant comes out of 
the big door of the Jockey Club, carrying a lighted taper on the 
end of a long pole. He is greeted with a cheer of welcome by 
the waiting crowds. Then the shouting gives place to absolute 
silence, the silence of keen expectancy. In all the huge throng 
every individual assumes an attitude of listening. Finally the 
signal comes. Away over all the city roars the big bell in the 
cathedral tower. Before the first stroke has exhausted its rever- 
berations a mighty shout and a sound as of a thousand cannon 
burst upon the air. The man with the lighted taper ignites 
the fuse that hangs from the pendent eflfigy. The little spark 
dashes quickly up the thread, and in an instant reaches the 
deposit of gunpowder inside the equestrian effigy. There is a 
thunderous explosion, and poor Judas is scattered to the winds. 
His sombrero falls here, his saddle is hurled there, and wherever 
his dismembered anatomy or trappings land, a mad, impetuous 
rush ensues, and men with torn garments and bruised bodies 
are piled on top of one another, a struggling mass, on the pave- 
ment. And steadily continues the downfall of silver coins from 
the burning debris overhead, encouraging other fierce combats 
among the Indians. When the last shred has fallen from the 
rope and the lucky ones have pocketed their spoils, or made off 
with them through the crowd, those that are left of the huge 
throngs on the street turn to the crowds at the windows and 
petition for more of the silver rainfall. For quite an hour the 
people at the windows continue to toss coins of all values to the 
ragged mobs. Then, little by little, the multitude grows less on 
the streets, and the celebration is over. 

Juggernaut, Car of. Juggernaut, more properly Jaganatha, 
the Lord of the World, is an alternative title for Krishna, one 
of the avatars or incarnations of Yishnu. The famous temple 
of Juggernaut is in the town of Puri, which is situated on the 
Bay of Bengal in the province of Orissa. The whole province 
of Orissa has for twenty centuries been the holy land of the 
Hindoos. Its happy inhabitants live secure of a reception into 
the world of spirits ; and even those who visit it and bathe in 
ils sacred rivers obtain remission of their sins. Every town is 
filled with temples, every village has its monastery, every hill-top 
far up the mountain sides is crowned with a shrine. But Puri 
is its Holy of Holies. Its thirty thousand citizens hold their 
ground rent-free, upon condition of the performance of certain 
services in and about the temples. 

The temple of Juggernaut stands in a spacious square area 
enclosed by a lofty wall. The enclosure is shared by one hun- 
dred and twenty other temples of all sizes, dedicated to various 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 583 

gods. Over them all towers the great pagoda in a tapering 
elliptical curve to the height of two hundred feet from the 
ground. The pagoda is properly dedicated to Krishna, but 
Siva and his wife and sister Subhadra (which is but another 
name for Kali) are objects of almost equal adoration. The three 
idols representing these deities are rude logs coarsely fashioned 
from the waist up in human form, — the same carved by Yishnu 
himself. On certain festivals golden hands are fastened to the 
short stumps which project from the shoulders of Juggernaut. 
The priests give a spiritual significance to the lack of limbs. 
" The Lord of the World," they say, " needs neither hands nor 
feet to work his purposes among men." 

The service of the temple consists of a daily round of obla- 
tions, and of sumptuous ceremonies at special seasons of the 
year. The offerings are only fruits, flowers, and simple articles 
of food, such as rice, pulse, butter, milk, salt, vegetables, cocoa- 
nuts, and ginger, which are offered up to the images and then 
eaten by the priests. The entire value of them is put down at 
£4 85. M. a day, or £1572 a year. Four times a day the gates 
are closed while the god is at his meals, attended by a few of 
his most favored servants. At the door stand a group of ascetics 
singing his praises, while in the pillared hall the dancing-girls 
amuse him with voluptuous gyrations. 

There are twenty-four high festivals in the year, each occu- 
pying several days, or even weeks. At the Eed Powder Festival, 
occurring about Easter, and lasting three weeks, a boat proces- 
sion is formed on the sacred lake. At the Bathing Festival the 
images are brought down to the lake, and a proboscis is fastened 
to their noses, so as to give them the appearance of Ganesa, the 
elephant-god of the aboriginal tribes. But the Eath Jatra, or 
Car Festival, is the great event of the religious year. This falls 
in the month of June or July, according as the months of the 
Hindoo calendar fall. Its object is to convey Juggernaut, with 
his brother and sister, from the temple to his country-house, 
a mile distant. 

For weeks before the time the pilgrims come trooping to 
Puri at the rate of thousands a day. The temple cooks have 
made their calculations for feeding ninety thousand mouths ; 
for the doctrine is studiously inculcated that no food must be 
cooked except in the temple kitchen. Each image has a sepa- 
rate car. That of Juggernaut is thirty-five feet square, with 
wheels sixteen feet in diameter ; the others are sma41er. When 
the sacred images are placed in their chariots, the multitude 
fall on their knees and bow their foreheads in the dust. Then 
they lay hold of the ropes, and drag the heavy cars down the 
broad street. Before and behind drums beat and cymbals 



584 CURIOSITIES OF 

clash, while from the platforms of the cars the priests shout 
obscene songs and stories, accompanied by lascivious gestures, 
amid the shouts and applause of the multitude. 

And so the dense mass, tugging, sweating, singing, praying, 
and swearing, drag the cars slowly along. The journey is but 
a mile, yet it takes several hours to accomplish it. Once 
arrived at the country-house, the crowds return to the vicinity 
of the temple, to spend their time in riot and debauchery. 
After eight days the ceremony of the Yolta rath, or the bring- 
ing back of the cars and the idols, takes place. But Lord 
Juggernaut finds no willing hands among the exhausted de- 
bauchees who were erstwhile his coursers. Indeed, he would 
probably never get back at all, but for the aid of the professional 
pullers, a special body of forty-two hundred peasants of the 
neighboring region. 

All this is bad enough. But there appears to be no foundation 
for the oft-repeated story of thousands of pilgrims throwing 
themselves under the wheels of the car of Juggernaut in the 
hope of attaining bliss. It is obvious, of course, that in a closely 
packed, eager throng of a hundred thousand men and women, 
many of them unaccustomed to exposure or hard labor, and all 
of them tugging and straining to the utmost under the blazing 
tropical sun, deaths must occasionally occur. There have, doubt- 
less, been instances of pilgrims throwing themselves under the 
wheels in a frenzy of religious excitement. But such instances 
have always been rare, and are now unknown. At one time 
several unhappy people were killed or injured every year, but 
they were almost invariably cases of accidental trampling. The 
few suicides that did occur were for the most part cases of dis- 
eased and miserable persons who took this means to put them- 
selves out of pain. The official returns put this beyond doubt. 

But in another aspect the victims of Juggernaut far exceed 
the numbers ascribed to them by fiction. Puri is perhaps the 
filthiest city on earth. It contains about seven thousand houses. 
These furnish poor accommodations for a hundred thousand 
pilgrims. In dry weather, indeed, the spiritual army can sleej) 
out in the open air. But the Car Festival usually falls at the 
beginning of the rainy season, when the water pours down in 
almost solid sheets. Every lane and alley becomes a torrent or 
a stinking canal. The pilgrims must seek the lodging-houses, 
and five houses out of six are lodging-houses compared with 
which our poorest tenement houses are palaces of health and 
comfort. 

One of the most beautiful institutions in Puri also becomes a 
means of death. This is the almost sacramental ceremony of 
eating the sacred rice. Portions of cooked rice are sanctified 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 585 

by being brought into the presence of Juggernaut. This food 
is so holy that it wipes away all distinctions of caste or sect. 
The highest may eat it with the lowest. A priest will not refuse 
it from a Christian. This is the common food of all pilgrims. 
When freshly cooked, it is not unwholesome ; but only a small 
part of it ia eaten fresh, and not a grain of it must be thrown 
away. In twenty-four hours putrefactive fermentation sets in, 
and in forty-eight hours it becomes a loathsome mass of putrid 
matter unfit for human use, — dangerous to a person in robust 
health, and deadly to the wayworn pilgrims. 

What wonder that the cholera makes its regular appearance ! 
And even when the disease does not become epidemic the mor- 
tality is fearful, especially on the return journey. The estimates 
of the number of deaths among the pilgrims to Juggernaut vary 
from twelve thousand to fifty thousand a year. 

(See "Orissa," by W. W. Hunter, London, 1872; Bruce's 
" Scenes and Sights in the East," 1857.) 

Julian Hospitator, St. (It. Giuliano Ospitale ; Fr. Julien 
r Aospitalier), the patron of hospitals, and (erroneously) of 
ferrymen, boatmen, travellers, and wandering minstrels. In the 
most ancient calendars his festival is marked for January 6, 
which is held to be the probable date of his martyrdom, but, 
owing to the concurrence of the Epiphany, it was deferred in 
different churches to different dates. At present January 9 is 
the date generally agreed on. 

St. Julian was born of noble parents at Antinoe, in Egypt. 
When he was eighteen years old his parents wished him to marry, 
but Julian was averse to the idea, as he wished to devote him- 
self to a religious life. But it is related that Christ appeared to 
him in a dream and bade him accede to the wishes of his parents, 
telling him that he and his wife would live in chastity and enter 
into the kingdom of heaven as virgins. Thereupon Julian mar- 
ried a maiden named Basilissa, who was noted for her piety. On 
the night of their marriage the pair, according to old chroni- 
clers, enjoyed celestial visions and saw their names written in 
the Book of Life, which further strengthened them in their de- 
termination to live in chastity. They devoted their revenues to 
relieving the poor and sick, and turned their house into a hos- 
pital. From this circumstance Julian is known as the Hospital- 
ler. Basilissa died first, and some years afterwards Julian met 
his death during the persecution of Maximin II., a.d. 313. The 
skull of St. Julian, said to have been brought out of the East 
into France during the popedom of Gregory the Great, is his 
only extant relic. A part is preserved in the monastery of 
Morigny, near Etampes, and part in the church of St. Basilissa, 



586 



CURIOSITIES OF 



at Paris. In art St. Julian and St. Basilissa are represented 
holding the same lily-stalk, or looking on the Book of Life 
wherein their names are written. Certain legends repeated by 
St. Antoninus but rejected by the Church have given occasion 
to the Italian painters to represent St. Julian as a sportsman, 
with a hawk in his hand, and to the French painters to repre- 
sent him as a boatman in a barge. In France, therefore, ferry- 
men, bargemen, and postilions kept his feast as that of their 
principal patron. 

July. As the fifth month in the old Eoman year, this was 
called Quintihs, or fifth. It was the birth-month of Julius Caesar, 
and after his death Mark Antony named it Julius in his honor. 
In the old Alban calendar it had thirty-six days. Eomulus re- 
duced the number to thirty-one, and Numa to thirty, but Julius 




July. Haymaking. 



Caesar again made it thirty-one. The early Saxons called it 
Segmonath, it being the month in which they usually mowed 
and made their hay-harvest. They also knew it as Mcedmonath, 
the meads being then in bloom. 

July the Fourteenth. (Fr. Le Quatorze Juillet.') The anni- 
versary of the taking of the Bastille by a Parisian mob in 1789, 
and to-day the national festival of the French Eepublic. The 
name Bastille is a general one for a fortress flanked by bastions, 
but is applied specifically to a huge structure which, originally a 
castle for the defence of Paris, became in later times a famous 
prison. Here partly in the towers and partly in the cellars below 
the level of the ground were confined the victims of political, 
ecclesiastical, or family hate, often so effectually removed from 
the outside world that when they came to die their very names 
and the reasons for their incarceration had been forgotten. 

The Bastille commanded by its guns the workingmen's quarter 
in the Faubourg St.-Antoine, and its lofty walls, surrounded by 
a deep moat, seemed almost impregnable. Yet on July 14, 1789, 
it was attacked and taken by a mob with twenty cannon, after a 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 687 

feeble defence by the goverDor Delaunay and his small garrison 
of eighty-two old soldiers and thirty-two Swiss. Only seven 
prisoners were found and released, a fact which has thrown some 
suspicion of exaggeration on the legends of the Bastille, and 
this suspicion has been confirmed by recent researches. 

Next day the destruction of the building was begun by the 
exasperated multitude, amid the thunder of cannon and the 
pealing of the Te Deum. The greater part of the stones were 
used in the building of a new bridge known as the Bridge of the 
Kevolution, the Jacobin feeling a glorious thrill in trampling 
them under his feet. Others were preserved as relics and ex- 
hibited intact at all public festivals, or were broken into small 
pieces, set in gold, and worn as jewelry by men and women. 

The news of the taking of the Bastille shook all Europe, and 
was everywhere hailed by radical sentiment as the beginning of 
a new era for humanit}-. Even at St. Petersburg, we are told, 
men of all nations ^ung themselves into one another's arms and 
wept for joy. The amiable Cowper had already assured his 
readers that there was not an English heart that would not leap 
to hear that the horrid towers of the Bastille had fallen. The 
Bastille was in the eyes of liberal Europe as well as of revolu- 
tionary France the symbol of all the iniquities and of all the 
misdeeds of the kings of France. 

Louis XVI. himself accepted the event as a sign that all re- 
sistance to the popular demands was useless. He re-entered 
Paris in the novel character of a submissive and patriot king 
amid the applause of the populace that had just captured his 
prison. The fervor of Paris quickly spread to the provinces, 
and became so intense and so potent that the Assembly was fired 
with a new spirit, and only three weeks after the Bastille was 
captured there took place the famous sitting of the Fourth of 
August, when the nobles and clergy solemnly renounced all 
their privileges and the reign of equality was started in France. 
In short, the destruction of the Bastille meant much more than 
the razing of one stronghold of regal tyranny. It not only 
started the French Eevolution, btat impressed a special character 
on the Eevolution. It went far to make it republican, and it 
tended to create an association of equality with liberty. 

The first anniversary of the taking of the Bastille was cele- 
brated by the so-called Feast of Federation in the Champ de 
Mars in Paris. The people had eagerly with their barrows and 
pickaxes made the gigantic amphitheatre from which three hun- 
dred thousand spectators watched the proceedings. All was 
love, concord, and fervent hope. A bishop — perhaps the most 
extraordinary bishop ever known. His Eminence of Autun, he 
who was soon to become famous as Prince Talleyrand — officiated 



588 CURIOSITIES OF 

at the improvised altar. When the unfortunate Louis XVI. 
ascended the steps and meekly swore fealty to the Eevolutionary 
constitution, the public excitement ran to fever-heat. 

In the evening the crowd assembled on the site of the destroyed 
Bastille, where amid the still extant ruins an artificial forest of 
eighty-three trees — typical of the eighty-three departments — had 
been planted and were brilliantly garlanded and illuminated. 

In 1792 it was decided to raise a column composed of the 
remaining stones of the old fortress in the Place de la Bas- 
tille. The foundation was laid with great public rejoicing on 
July 14 of that year. 

But it was not until 1880 that the position of July Fourteenth 
in the French political calendar was assured. In that year an 
act was passed making it a solemn national feast-day. It went 
off with tremendous eclat. " It excited great enthusiasm," says 
the correspondent of the London Saturday Beview (July 17, 
1880), " it occupied and absorbed the public mind, it gave great 
satisfaction to those who planned, and great enjoyment to those 
who watched. The great event of the day was the distributing 
of the new flags to the army by the President [at Longchamps] 
and the march past of the troops that followed. President 
Grevy, with M. Leon Say on his right and M. Gambetta on his 
left, represented France such as France now is, and the trio went 
through their task with as much gravity and dignity as could 
have been displayed by the three great Emperors of Europe. 
In the evening there were illuminations, as Paris alone of all 
cities knows how to manage them. Flags, fountains, clusters 
and festoons of lamps, combined to dazzle and delight the eye. 
But what was moat striking was the ardor of the people to make 
the fete their own. They seem to have been carried away with 
the idea that they would show they were not having a fete given 
them, but were giving it themselves. They were engaged in 
paying a solemn tribute, not to a dynasty or a family, but to 
themselves. The dingier the street, the gayer it was with flags 
and bunting. Hero-worship never dies out, and something of a 
personal character was imparted to the spectacle by the exhibi- 
tion of little wooden effigies of M. Gambetta dressed in evening 
clothes, — perhaps the quaintest form of mob idolatry ever de- 
vised by man. But there was not very much of M. Gambetta 
or any one else in the festivity. To sing the Marseillaise hour 
after hour, to look at colored lamps, and to feel that there was a 
republic broad as the sun above to guide and bless them, was 
all that the happy and simple population of Paris seemed to 
need." 

Year by year since its institution in 1880 the fete follows much 
the same routine. Society, in the main, goes out of town, frown- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 589 

ing on the Eepublican anniversary, but a yearly increasing mi- 
nority of the smart set who have accepted the new order linger 
behind and join with the official world and the rich people of 
the foreign colony in lending a show of bravery to the scene, 
while the general public gives itself up to unrestrained rejoicing. 
Shops and government offices close, flags adorn the streets, out- 
door concerts, balls, fireworks, theatrical representations, and 
other entertainments provide public amusement in plenty. The 
great feature of the day is the military review at Longchamps 
under the eye of the President. Deputies and senators, who 
close the political see-saw of their session just in time, are be- 
sieged by demands for tickets to the official tribune. It is the 
last event of the expiring season. After this, until late in Sep- 
tember, Paris is left to the common people and the casual 
tourists. 

July, the Fourth of (known also as Independence Day). 
The greatest secular holiday of the United States. Its observ- 
ance has the statutory sanction of every State in the Union. 

Yet it may not be generally known that no less than three 
dates might reasonably compete for designation as the natal day 
of American Independence and for the honors of the anniversary 
of that event. 

On the 2d of July, 1776, was adopted the resolution of inde- 
pendence, the sufficient legislative act ; and it was this day that 
Mr. Adams designated as the anniversary in the oft-quoted letter 
written on his desk at the time, prophesying its future celebra- 
,tion by bells, bonfires, cannonades, etc. On the 4th of July oc- 
curred the Declaration of Independence. On the 2d of August 
following took place the ceremony of signature, which has fur- 
nished to the popular imagination the common pictorial and 
dramatic conceptions of the event. 

The history connecting these three dates may be intelligently 
told in a brief space. On the 15th of May, 1776, a convention 
in Virginia had instructed its delegates in the General Congress 
"to propose to that body to declare the United Colonies free and 
independent States, absolved from all allegiance to or dependence 
on the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain, and that they give 
the assent of this Colony to such declaration, and to whatever 
measures may be thought proper and necessary by the Congress 
for forming foreign alliances and a confederation of the Colonies." 
The motion thus ordered was on the 7th of June made in Con- 
gress by Kichard Henry Lee, as the oldest member of the Vir- 
ginia delegation. It was to the effect that " these United Colo- 
nies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; 
that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown ; 



690 CURIOSITIES OP 

and that all political connection between them and the state 
of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." The 
resolution was slightly debated for two or three days, but from 
considerations of prudence or expediency the discussion was in- 
termitted. As texts for the action of Congress there were the 
resolution referred to, and the more formal, or at least more 
lengthy, document which the committee of five — Jeiferson, 
Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Livingston — had been instructed 
on the 11th of June to prepare. This document was draughted 
by Jefferson and presented under the title of " A Declaration by 
the Eepresentatives of the United States of America in General 
Congress assembled." 

On the Ist of July there was again called up in Congress the 
resolution proposed by Mr. Lee. On the 2d of July it passed. 
Two days later (the 4th of July) was adopted, after various 
amendments, the " Declaration" from Mr. Jefferson's pen. The 
document was authenticated, like the other papers of the Con- 
gress, by the signatures of the president and the secretary, and, 
in addition, was signed by the members present^ with the excep- 
tion of Mr. Dickinson of Pennsylvania, who, as Mr. Jefferson 
has testified, " refused to sign it." 

But it did not then bear the names of the members of Con- 
gress as they finally appeared on it. A number of these still 
opposed it, and had voted against it ; it was passed unanimously 
only as regarded States. Thus, a majority of the Pennsylvania 
delegation had persistently opposed it, and it was only the ab- 
sence of two of their delegates on the final vote that left a 
majority for this State in its favor. Some days after the Decla- 
ration had thus passed, and had been proclaimed at the head of 
the army, it was ordered by Congress that it be engrossed on 
parchment and signed by every member; and it was not until 
the 2d of August that these signatures were made, and the mat- 
ter concluded by this peculiar and august ceremony of personal 
pledges in the autographs of the members. It is this copy or 
form of the Declaration which has, in fact, been preserved as 
the original : the first signed paper does not exist, and was 
probably destroyed as incomplete. 

If the natal day of American Independence is to be derived 
from the ceremony of these later signatures, and the real date 
of what has been preserved as the legal original of the Declara- 
tion, then it would be the 2d of August. If derived from the 
substantial, legal act of separation from the British Crown, which 
was contained rather in the resolution of Congress than in its 
Declaration of Independence, it would be the 2d of July. But 
common consent has determined to date the great anniversary 
from the apparently subordinate event of the passage of the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



691 



Declaration, and thus celebrates the Fourth of July as the 
birthday of the nation. 

July the Nineteenth. The anniversar}- of the declaration 
of the war of 1870-71, between Germany and France. 

In conformity with an order of the Imperial Cabinet dated 
January 27, 1895, the ceremony of* decorating the colors carried 
by the regiments of the Prussian Guards is annually celebrated 
in Berlin on this date. The colors, twenty-four in number, are 
escorted from the court-yard of the Old Castle to the Hall by a 
squadron of the Cuirassiers of the Guard and a battalion of the 
Emperor Alexander Eegiment. Then, in the presence of a mem- 
ber of the Imperial family, the general staff, and a deputation 
of officers representing the regiments of the Guard, the com- 
mander of the cavalry division of the Guards reads the Impe- 
rial Cabinet order and delivers a speech at whose conclusion 
three cheers are given for the Emperor. Two sprigs of oak are 
then fastened with a gold band at the top of the staff of each 
flag, and the colors are escorted back to the castle. 

Festivities including parades and speeches are also celebrated 
by the Berlin University in the Hall of the Singing Academy, 
closing with a stirring chorus by the students. 

June. The sixth month of the year in the modern or Gre- 
gorian calendar. Ovid in the " Fasti" indicates that it was 
named after Juno, but a more likely etymon derives it from 
Juniores, the lower branch of the original Eoman legislature, as 
that of May was from the higher branch. In the old Latin or 




June. Cutting Wood. 



Alban calendar the month of June had but twenty-six days. 
Eomulus gave it thirty. This was reduced to twenty-nine by 
Numa, and restored to thirty by Julius Caesar, a number it has 
ever since retained. 

Among the old Romans June was a lucky as May was an 
unlucky month for marriages, the especially favorable seasons 
being at full moon and at the conjunction of the sun and moon. 



592 CURIOSITIES OF 

June the Fourth. Since the abolition of Eton Montem this 
is the great annual holiday of Eton College, England. It is the 
trysting-day which attracts all her sons, old and young, from 
far and wide. Instituted in commemoration of a visit of King 
George III., it is celebrated on his birthday. The proceedings 
include " speeches" delivered in the upper school at twelve noon 
before a large audience, elaborate luncheons, a full choral service 
in chapel at three o'clock, and at six p.m. the famous Procession 
of the Boats to Surly Hall, a public house on the right bank of 
the Thames, some three and a half miles from Windsor. The 
procession is headed by a quaint old-fashioned boat (an Eton 
racing boat of primitive daj^s), rowed by watermen and convoy- 
ing a military band. Every boat is decorated with flags, and the 
boys all wear gay costumes. 

Before outriggers came into vogue, and when the long boats 
were "tubs," each boat used to carry a "sitter" to dine with 
the crew. The sitter was some old Etonian of generous and 
festive disposition (generally an old " oar"), who signified to the 
captain of a boat his intention of presenting the crew with a 
certain quantity of champagne. In return he was entitled to 
be rowed up to Surly in the boat to which he presented the 
wine ; he occupied the coxswain's seat, who knelt or stood 
behind him. 

It is recorded that George Canning, the famous prime min- 
ister, went up as " sitter" in the Monarch ten-oar, in the year 
1824. 

Opposite to Surly Hall, a liberal display of good things, spread 
on tables on shore, awaits the arrival of the crews, — the sixth 
form alone being accommodated with a tent. After a few toasts, 
and as much champagne as can be fairly disposed of in a short 
time, the captain of the boats gives the word for all to re- 
embark, and the flotilla returns to Eton in the same order. 
This order, however, is by no means such as would delight the 
eye of a critical first lieutenant in her majesty's navy : singing, 
shouting, racing, and bumping, all go on together in the most 
harmonious confu^sion. 

Before disembarking, the boats row three times round the 
eyot near Windsor Bridge, while a brilliant display of fireworks 
is let off" from the college. 

Justina of Padua, St. (It. Giustina), one of the patrons 
of Padua and Venice. Her festival is celebrated on October 7, 
the reputed anniversary of her death. St. Justina was a daugh- 
ter of King Vitalicino, who was a Christian. After the death of 
her father she was denounced as a Christian before the Emperor 
Maximian, in the year 303, and was condemned to be slain with 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 593 

a sword. She opened her arms joyfully to receive the sword, 
and fell pierced through the bosom. She is represented in art 
with a sword through her bosom, and sometimes a unicorn, the 
emblem of chastity, appears in her pictures. A church was built 
at Padua in her honor, and in 1177 her skeleton was supposed 
to have been discovered under the altar of the church ; it was 
placed in a shrine, and is still exhibited to the veneration of the 
people. There is another famous church of St. Justina in 
Yenice. On the day of the saint's festival the Senate makes a 
solemn procession in thanksgiving for the victory of Lepanto, 
gained over the Turks on October 7, 1571. 



K. 

Kado, St. A saint who does not appear in the hagiologies, 
but whose memory is preserved in the local traditions of Brit- 
tany. On one occasion he wished to have a bridge thrown over 
an ill-conditioned river, and, after appealing in vain to the Yir- 
gin and the Trinity, was compelled to turn to the devil, who had 
always been considered an excellent mason. Satan drew an 
admirable bridge on red paper, and stipulated that he was to 
have the first soul that crossed over the bridge in payment for 
his labors. But the saint cheated him by driving a black cat 
over the bridge as soon as it was finished. 

Kali, Festivals of. Kali is the chief goddess in the Hindoo 
mythology. Her idols are therefore surpassingly hideous, and 
the festivals in her honor are celebrated with the most frightful 
exhibitions of devotional self-torture. She is usually represented 
as a black or dark-blue female, with blood-streaked countenance 
and dishevelled hair, dancing on the prostrate body of her hus- 
band Siva. One of her arms (she has four) holds a sword, 
another grasps by the hair a human head ; all her three eyes 
(she has one in her forehead) are full of wrath ; human victims 
dangle as ornaments from her ears, and her necklace and girdle 
are composed of skulls. Yet, however ferocious the appearance 
of the idol, it represents her fresh from the beneficent deed of 
slaying the giants, whose blood she has drunk ; and the lolling 
of her tongue is emblematic of her shame on discovering that, 
in her blind fury, she is trampling on her husband. The autumn 
worship of Doorga (q. v.), one form of Kali, celebrates her as the 
creative principle in splendid, expensive, and indelicate festivi- 
ties. The general character of her worship, however, is of a 
different kind. It is in her honor that the Saiva sect perform 



594 CURIOSITIES OF 



I 



the Churruk Poojah (q. v.), when self immolated victims swing in 
the air on hooks fastened into the flesh of their backs. But to 
understand the hideousness of the Kali worship one must wit- 
ness the proceedings which during the Churruk Poojah festival 
take place in her temple at Calcutta, the celebrated Kali Gat. 

On entering the precincts of the temple (which has no attrac- 
tions of an architectural kind), Brahmins are seen standing to 
receive the free-will offerings of the people, who flow past in 
eager crowds, receiving in return for their money consecrated 
flowers. Within is the hideous image of the goddess ; and hard 
by the shrine some men stand with iron spikes, canes, rods, etc. 
Groups of devotees — ten or a dozen at a time — come up to these 
men to be operated on. One man is pierced through in either 
side ; a couple of canes are then inserted, and, their ends being 
held by two of his companions, he dances away as if in a frenzy. 
Another has his tongue pierced, and passes through the aperture 
a living snake ; another has his arm perforated, and passes 
through it an iron rod ; and another passes an iron rod through 
his protruded tongue. Group after group press forward to be 
thus treated. At length, all the groups being conspicuously ar- 
ranged on a platform, the goats for the sacrifice are decapitated, 
and the court switns with blood. Strange ingredients are then 
thrown on the fire. As the smoke and flame ascend, discordant 
instruments clash forth uproarious music ; and in the midst of 
the din, the chief actors commence their gesticulations, and 
heighten their voluntary inflictions, by pulling the rods, canes, 
spikes, snakes, to and fro in the lacerated flesh, till streams of 
blood pour forth afresh ; and the crowd become frantic with ex- 
citement, and shout, " Yictory to Kali ! victory to the great 
Kali !" Afterwards they leave the temple to parade in similar 
fashion in the streets ; and nothing can be more unearthly than 
to witness these hideous processions, accompanied by a horrid 
din of trumpets, gongs, drums, fifes, and cymbals, parading in 
the chief thoroughfares of Calcutta. (See Bruce's " Scenes and 
Sights in the East," 1857.) 

Kenelm, St. The son of Kenulph, King of Mercia. In 819, 
at the age of seven, he succeeded his father on the throne ; but 
at the instigation of his sister, the cruel Quindride, he was put 
to death a year later. His head was cut off, and he was buried 
under a thorn-tree, but a miraculous light shining over the place 
revealed the presence of the remains. Naturally so signal a 
proof of divine favor made them a desirable possession. The 
Canons of Gloucestershire and Worcestershire contended for 
them. The dispute grew hot, and the weather was hotter. At 
last a wise man proposed that the men of the two shires should 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 595 

go to sleep at the same time, and whichever God should first 
awake should take the body and go their way. J^ow, the Abbot 
of Winchcombe and the G-loucestershire men, who perhaps slept 
with one eye open, awoke first, and quietly levanted with the 
very profitable body of St. Kenelm. They enshrined it in the 
abbey of Winchcombe, which became a great resort for pilgrims. 

St. Kenelm is commemorated on his death-day, December 13, 
and also on the day of the translation of his remains, July 17. 
At the latter date a fair was held in his honor at Clent, in Staf- 
fordshire, where he was murdered, and where there was a 
famous spring called St. Kenelm's well, to which extraordinary 
virtues were attributed. 

Even more famous was St. Kenelm's wake, held on the Sunday 
after the fair, " on which day," says Brand, " within the memory 
of persons now living, it was the annual practice to crab the 
parson." The manner was for the villagers to lie in ambuscade 
along the route which the clergyman must take on his way to 
church and pelt him with crab-apples. Brand informs us on the 
testimony of eye-witnesses that on one occasion there were two 
sacks of crabs, each containing at least three bushels, emptied in 
the church field, besides large store of other missiles provided by 
other parties ; and it also appears that some of the more wanton 
not unfrequently threw sticks, stakes, etc., which probably led 
to the suppression of the practice. 

"Long, long ago, an incumbent of Frankley, to which St. 
Kenelm's is attached, w^as accustomed, through horrid, deep- 
rutted, miry roads, occasionally to wend his way to the seques- 
tered depository of the remains of the murdered saint-king, to 
perform divine service. It was his wont to carry some provisions 
with him, with which he refreshed himself at a farm-house near 
the scene of his pastoral duties. On one occasion, however, 
having eaten up his store of provisions, he was tempted (after 
he had donned his sacerdotal habit, and in the absence of the 
good dame) to pry into the secrets of a huge pot, in which was 
simmering the savory dish the lady had provided for her house- 
hold ; among the rest, dumplings Jbrmed no inconsiderable por- 
tion of the contents. The story runs that the parson poached 
sundry of them, hissing hot, from the caldron, and, hearing the 
footsteps of his hostess, he with great dexterity deposited them 
in the sleeves of his surplice. She, however, was conscious of 
her loss, and, closely following the parson to the church, by her 
presence prevented him from disposing of them, and, to avoid 
her accusation, he forthwith entered the reading-desk, and began 
to read the service, the clerk beneath making the responses. Ere 
long a dumpling slipped out of the parson's sleeve and fell on 
the clerk's head ; he looked up with astonishment, but, taking 



696 CURIOSITIES OF 

the matter in good part, proceeded with the service. Presently, 
however, another dumpUng fell on his head, at which he with 
upturned eyes and ready tongue responded, 'Two can play at 
that, master,' and, suiting the action to the word, he immediately 
began pelting the parson with crabs, a store of which he had 
gathered, intending to take them home in his pocket to foment 
the sprained leg of his horse, and so well did he play his part 
that the parson soon decamped, amid the jeers of the old dame, 
and the laughter of the few persons who were in attendance.' 
(Brand : Popular Antiquities, 1849, vol. 1. p. 344.) 

Key of Death. (It. Chiave delta Morte.) A large key pre- 
served in the arsenal at Yenice. It is so constructed that th( 
handle may be turned around, revealing a small spring, which, 
being pressed, drives a very fine needle with considerable force! 
from the other end. This needle is so delicate that the flesh 
closed over the wound immediately, leaving no mark. It was 
invented by Tebaldo, a stranger, who established himself as a 
merchant, in Yenice, about 1600. Becoming enamoured of the 
daughter of an ancient house, he sought her hand in marriage, 
but was rejected, as she was already aflSanced. Enraged and 
seeking revenge, he waited at the church door as the maiden of/ 
his choice passed in to her marriage, and then, unperceived, he! 
sent the needle into the breast of the bridegroom. The latter,! 
seized with a sharp pain, fainted, was carried home, and died! 
soon after, his strange illness baffling the skill of the physicians. 
Tebaldo again asked for the maiden's hand, was again refused, 
and in a few days both her parents died in the same mysterious 
manner. Upon examination of their bodies, the small steel in- 
strument was found embedded in the flesh. The young lady 
went into a convent during her mourning, and here Tebaldo 
pressed his suit, but, with an instinctive horror of the man, she 
declined his offer, whereupon he contrived to wound her. Upon 
her return to her room she felt a pain in her breast, saw a single 
drop of blood, and when surgeons were hastily summoned, with 
ready intuition, they cut into the wounded part, extracted the 
needle, and saved her life. Suspicion immediately falling upon 
the right culprit, his house was searched, the key was discovered, 
and Tebaldo was executed. 

Keyne or Keyna, St. The daughter of Braganus, Prince of 
Garthmatrim, or Brecon. Her sister, Melaria, was the mother 
of St. David. Keyna refused all offers of marriage and vowed 
herself to virginity. She retired to a spot near the Severn, and 
by her prayers turned the serpents with which the place 
abounded into Ammonites. She afterwards took up her abode 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 597 

at Mount St. Michael, and there she caused a spring of healing 
waters to burst from the earth. The legend runs that whoever 
drinks first of this water after marriage becomes the ruling 
power in the house. Southey in his poem " The Well of St. 
Keyne" versifies the following story : A Cornishman took his 
bride to church, and the moment the ring was on ran up the 
mount to drink of the mystic water. Down he came in full glee 
to tell his bride ; but the bride said, " My good man, I brought a 
bottle of water to church with me, and drank of it before you 
started." 

Khalig, Cutting of the. A yearly ceremony in old Cairo at 
the rising of the Nile, when the Khahg canal dam that closes 
the river's mouth is cut, so as to allow the waters free egress to 
the Eed Sea. The date depends, of course, upon the height of 
the river, but is generally about the 10th of August. The at- 
tendant festivities attract enormous crowds. On the preceding 
evening the booths on the shore and the boats on the river are 
filled with merrymakers, while the Nile itself is a blaze of fire- 
works. About eight o'clock on the 10th the city's governor 
arrives with his troops and attendants. He gives a signal, and 
a score of j)easants cut the dam with their hoes, letting the water 
rush into the bed of the canal. Into the middle of the dam is 
cast a pillar of mud, called Arooset e Neel, "the bride of the 
Nile," and its gradual disintegration by the angry waters is 
eagerly watched. Meanwhile the governor throws a lot of cop- 
per coins into the canal, to be scrambled for by boys of all ages, 
whose quick motions and strategic tricks in the water that 
threatens to carry them off as it rushes through the openings 
of the dam are watched with lively interest. As soon as suffi- 
cient water has entered the canal, boat-loads of spectators ascend 
it with loud rejoicings. 

The festival dates back to ancient Egypt, when it was per> 
formed to propitiate Isis as the goddess of agriculture, and a live 
virgin was sacrificed as the bride of the Nile. The Arab writers 
claim that this part of the rite survived under the Coptic Chris- 
tians until the Saracenic conquest. They assert that the Copts 
told Amru, the first Moslem ruler, that on the thirteenth day 
of their month Baonneh they were accustomed to search for a 
young and handsome maiden, tear her from her home by force, 
and, dressing her as a bride, throw her into the Nile at Ehoda. 
Amru stopped the custom as a wilful waste of scarce women, 
and ordered the present mud statue to be substituted. 

Time was when the Caliph himself got up early to witness the 
ceremony and spent a matter of a quarter of a million of dollars 
on the festivities. Even within the memory of men now living, 



598 CURIOSITIES OF 

the Cutting of the Khalig was celebrated with a spirit unknown 
in these days of increased cares and diminished incomes. The 
old Turkish costumes, the variety in the dresses of the troops, 
and the Oriental character that formerly pervaded the entire 
assemblage are sadly missing in the tamer spectacle of to-day. 

Kilian, St., Martyr. His festival is celebrated on the reputed 
anniversary of his death, July 8 (689). A minor festival in 
honor of the translation of his remains occurs on February 14. 
Born in Ireland about the middle of the seventh century, of 
Christian parents, Kilian was early filled with a desire to carry 
the gospel to infidel lands. Accordingly in 685 he crossed over 
with tw^o companions, Diethman and Colman, to Franconia, 
where the people had no gods save a few which the Romans had 
left behind them. Kilian and his friends lived for years in Wiirz- 
burg, in a low dark room, with a spring of water welling up in 
one corner. The Duke Geswert and numbers of his people were 
converted. But it happened that Geswert had married Geila, 
his brother's widow, and Kilian obliged him to give her up, 
whereupon she caused the three men of God to be secretly mur- 
dered and buried in their dark room. Slowly and softly the 
chains of old habits and associations wound round the prince, 
who forgot his vows and relapsed into idolatry. But God's 
vengeance only slumbered for a while. The murderers died by 
strange and horrible deaths, accusing themselves of their crime; 
and Geswert was left alone in his desolate old age, children and 
grandchildren all dying before him, till at his own death the 
line became extinct, and the fief reverted to the Empire. Pepin 
le Bref, in expiation of the sin, gave the lands to Boniface, the 
great apostle of Germany, and thus was the see of Wiirzburg 
founded in 750. Burkhard, the friend of Boniface, and like him 
a monk from the shores of Britain, was the first bishop. The 
relics of Kilian were discovered about a century after his death. 
The secret was revealed in a vision to the blind abbot of a dis- 
tant monastery, who groped his way to Wiirzburg and down 
into the dark cell and pointed out the exact spot where the 
three bodies were found ; and, in order that a miraculous seal 
might be set upon his revelation, he bathed his eyes in the 
fountain and recovered his sight. So the bones were encased 
in a shrine of carved stone, and a cathedral was built over 
them. 

This cathedral was destroyed by fire, and the present one was 
built at a little distance from the old site. As years passed, a 
wish arose to show more honor to Kilian's shrine, and a large 
church was built over the crypt, called the New Minster, to dis- 
tinguish it from the cathedral. It has suffered much during nine 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 599 

centuries, and little grandeur or beauty is to be found in it now. 
Not a vestige remains of its cloister, in which, among other 
celebrities, was interred Walter von der Yogelweide, the sweetest 
of Minnesingers. But the shrine of St. Kilian still remains 
intact. 

A quaint custom was observed in Wiirzburg for centuries on 
St. Kilian's Day : a herald in gaudy attire rode through the 
town announcing the approach of an army of beggars, and all 
the outcasts of the country round came trooping in after him, 
filling the suburbs on the southern bunk of the Main, and for 
three days the townspeople, for charity and the love of St. Kil- 
ian, lodged and fed them and ministered to their wants, till, on 
the evening of the third day, the herald collected his motley 
troop and led them out at the south gate. The custom gave rise 
to such frequent scandals that it was at last suppressed ; but 
the fountain still rises in the dark crypt by St. Kilian's shrine, 
and the faithful still believe that weak eyes will be cured by 
its waters. 

Kirmess, or Kirmis. (Dutch kirk, German kirche, "a 
church," and mis or messe, respectively Dutch and German for 
a feast or church service.) A popular festival throughout Ger- 
many, Belgium, and Holland. In 1883 the name and some of 
the features of the Dutch Kirmess were borrowed by the Lady 
Managers of the New York Skin and Cancer Hospital for a sort 
of fair held for the benefit of that hospital in Delmonico's. This 
was so successful that the experiment was repeated on a larger 
scale for several years at the Metropolitan Opera-House. The 
idea was copied elsewhere, and thus the word Kirmesse obtained 
permanent lodgement in the language. 

In South Germany the Kirmess is known as a Kirchweihe, or 
church consecration. This strengthens the common explanation 
that the festival was once the, anniversary of the dedication of 
the parish church. Yet it existed even in pagan times, and only 
changed its name and its external characteristics with the advent 
of Christianity. The " court days" of the ancient Teutons, 
wiijn all the inhabitants of a district assembled and wandered 
from one sacred grove to another, were combined with sacrifices 
and holiday-making. Christianity adopted these festivities, bap- 
tized them with new names, and transferred them from the groves 
to the churchyard. Thus the Yenerable Bede quotes a letter 
from Pope Gregory the Great to the Anglo-Saxon bishops in 
which the following passage occurs: "As they" — i.e., the re- 
cently converted Anglo-Saxons — " are accustomed to slaughter 
many oxen and horses on the festivals of devils" (the ancient 
deities), " it is necessary to allow these festivals to exist, but to 



600 CURIOSITIES OF 

substitute some other object. Therefore on the anniversaries of 
the consecration of the church, and on the commemoration days 
of the martyrs whose relics are preserved in those churches 
which have been erected on the sites of the former sacrificial 
groves, a similar festival shall be held. Tbe spot sball be marked 
out with green boughs, and a Christian entertainment shall be 
given. Animals shall no longer be sacrificed in honor of Satan, 
but to the glory of God and the satisfying of men's appetites, in 
order that due thanks maybe rendered to the Giver of all Good." 
It was on the principle thus expressed by Pope Gregory that the 
church ale or wake was established in England (see Ale), and 
the Kirmess in Germany and the Low Countries. 

As years went on, however, the Kirmess, like the church ale, 
gradually lost its religious characteristics, and sometimes even 
gave rise to brawls and other excesses. Hence in the fifteenth 
century the Church festival was separated from the secular 
holiday. In the Low Countries the latter was transferred to 
the spring-time ; in Germany it is usually celebrated in Septem- 
ber or October. 

In Holland and Belgium the Kirmess is simply a gala time, 
in which the peasants give themselves up to several days of fes- 
tivity. Leaving their homes in holiday attire, they flock to the 
towns, which they make into a great playground, rushing through 
the streets to the cry of " Hossen ! Hossen !" The Kirmess 
proper is established in some public square, which is occupied by 
booths and tents of every description, belonging to wandering 
theatrical companies, acrobats, astrologers, variety shows, and 
restaurants. The grounds are made beautiful with flags and 
bright draperies of every color, and the booths, where articles 
of food are off'ered for sale, are in the charge of pretty girls in 
Old Holland costume. These girls are the very prettiest that 
can be found, and are dressed in the piquant and attractive cos- 
tume of the Netherlands peasant girls. A great feature of the 
Kirmess is found in the various dances executed by groups of 
peasants from different sections, each vying with the other in 
their picturesque scenes or in the perfection of the execution of 
their different dances. 

In Germany the festival opens with the joyous disinterring 
of the symbol of the Kirmess at the place where it had been 
buried with mourning the previous year. On the eve of the 
initial day (the latter being usually a Sunday) the village youth 
march to the spot, accompanied by music. The Kirmess sym- 
bol, usually a horse's skull, is dug up, placed on a pole decked 
with flowers and ribbons, and borne to the village amid loud 
rejoicings. In many places on the Lower Bhine a figure of 
Zacchseus (he who did climb a tree our Lord to see) is substituted 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 601 

for the horse's skull. Zacchseus is everywhere the patron saint 
of the Kirmess, but why, when, or where he became so is un- 
known. The symbol, crowned with the Kirmess garland of 
flowers and eggs, is set up in the dancing-hall of the village 
inn. 

Around it gather all the young men and the maidens. The 
former solemnly bind themselves to make holiday for three or 
more days, to keep a joint score, and to celebrate the feast 
jointly, as well as to stand by one another in the event of pos- 
sible fighting. 

In ratification of the compact, each in turn with a heavy 
wooden cudgel strikes a post fixed in the ground for the pur- 
pose. The number of strokes denotes the amount of holidays 
each will take. Generally three are deemed sufficient, but some- 
times four or six strokes are given. It is considered a good omen 
when the stake is finally driven quite into the ground. The girls, 
whose business it is to manufacture the Kirmess crown, and in 
some places to deck the Kirmess tree, are present during the 
process just described, and they fasten a red ribbon on the breast 
of every youth, which may not be discarded until the prescribed 
Kirmess days are over. 

On Sunday, as the last chords of the organ die away, the 
dance-music strikes up, often under the shadow of the village 
linden. The Kirmess has now begun. It is characterized by 
all manner of rural sports. The favorite beverages are beer and 
aniseseed brandy with sugar. On Tuesday the revellers go to 
church, headed by a band. Formerly they proceeded thither in 
masquerading guise, and were fetched by the priest himself 
The musicians performed during the mass, but the tunes were 
not always of an edifying description. After service, the party 
either betake themselves to the dancing-room, or else visit dis- 
tant farms, where the young men are regaled with cakes baked 
for the occasion. By Wednesday it is the turn of the married 
men to take the lead, and the youths retire. Frequently the 
wildest revelry occurs under the new auspices, and extends over 
the whole week, so that the Kirmess is not buried until Satur- 
day. Then the horse's skull or the effigy of Zacchseus is carried 
on a bier through the village with the usual funeral melodies. 
The erstwhile revellers walk beside it with chalked faces and 
covered with white cloths. There are also the usual masks, 
reminiscences of the ancient heathen gods, — such as the Faithful 
Eckhart, Hakelberend the Wild Huntsman, Knecht Euprecht, 
and Frau Berchta, — although they are now made to assume a 
merely demoniacal aspect. Thus they proceed to the spot whence 
the Kirmess is to be resuscitated the following year. This is 
generally a secluded and dismal place, and the flickering torches 



602 CURIOSITIES OF 

lend it a still more uncanny appearance. The Kirmess symbol 
is then laid in the deeply dug grave, and the bones and skulls 
of animals are also cast in. Whilst the hole is being filled up, a 
hideous din is created by those present, howling, shrieking, and 
beating pots and pans. With wild shouts the company return 
to the village, and the festival is at an end. « 

The ceremony varies slightly in different parts of Grermany, 
though its main features remain the same. In Suabia and in 
Baden the symbol of the Kirmess is a bottle of wine. The hat- 
dance is performed in several Suabian villages on the Sunday 
succeeding the burial. A hat is drawn up to the top of a long 
pole by a cord fastened at the bottom, whereto a long piece of 
lighted tinder is affixed. The young men dance in turn round 
the pole to an appointed goal, where each delivers up the deco- 
rated sprig in his hand to his successor. Lots determine the 
order in which each shall come. He who happens to be dancing 
when the hat falls from the burnt cord wins the hat. 

In that part of Bavaria called the Lechfeld it is usual on the 
Monday morning after the Kirchweihe to have a solemn mass 
said for the repose of the souls of all the parish dead. The 
women appear dressed in black. In the morning before mass 
the musicians go round to the house of every well-to-do peasant 
and play a dance, in return for which they expect to be regaled 
with meat, cakes, and beer. 

Kiss of Peace. The kiss of peace, or holy kiss, originally 
formed an element of every act of Christian worship. JS'o sac- 
rament or sacramental function was deemed complete without 
it. Tertullian calls it the seal of prayer, and asks, " What prayer 
is complete where the holy kiss is absent ? What kind of sacri- 
fice is that from which men depart without the kiss of peace ?" 
At first it was given promiscuously, but gradually the rule was 
introduced that men should kiss only men, and women women. 
After the thirteenth century a mechanical substitute was intro- 
duced in the Western Church. A small wooden tablet, or metal 
plate, bearing a representation of the crucifixion, was first kissed 
by the priest and his assistants and then handed to the com- 
municants to be pressed to their lips. A trace of the kiss of 
peace lingers in the Episcopalian service, in the final benediction, 
which begins, " The peace of God." In the Eastern Churches 
the custom is still in a measure retained. The Eussian clergy 
kiss one another during the recital of the Nicene Creed. In the 
Coptic Church the custom remains in all its pristine vigor. 
" Travellers now living," says Dean Stanley, in his " Christian 
Institutions," " have had their faces stroked and been kissed by 
the Coptic priest in the cathedral at Cairo, while at the same 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



603 



moment everybody else was kissing everybody throughout the 
church." 

Kissing the Pope's Toe. Among the Oriental nations it 
was customary to kiss the hands or the feet or the hem of the 
garment of a person whom the kisser desired to honor. The 
Egyptians had this custom of the Assyrians, the Greeks of the 
Egyptians, the old Eomans of the Greeks, and the modern 
Eomans of the old, whose Pontifex Maximus had his toe kissed 
under the Empire. The penitent Magdalene kissed the feet of 
our Lord. At the present time it is no uncommon thing for a 
Mohammedan to wash and kiss the feet of a guest who has trav- 




KissiNG THE Hope's Toe. 
(From Picart.) 

elled a long distance to pay him honor. ISTay, the Pope himself, 
as well as Eoman Catholic and Greek sovereigns and primates, 
washes and kisses the feet of pilgrims on Maundy Thursday 
{q. v.). It is related of St. Susanna, a virgin who suffered mar- 
tyrdom in the year 294, that she kissed the feet of Pope Caius. 
Therefore it is not necessary to accept the explanation of Mat- 
thew Paris that before the eighth century the Popes gave only 
their hands to be kissed, but that a certain misguided woman, not 



604 CURIOSITIES OF 

content merely to kiss the Pope's hand, gave it an affectionate 
squeeze, which so scandalized His Holiness that he straightway 
cut off the member which had vicariously offended. Ever after 
that, continues Matthew, he was forced to present his foot in- 
stead, — a practice which has continued for all time. As squeam- 
ishness succeeded to the original simplicity, the Pope encased the 
foot in a slipper, and over the place where the great toe is housed 
a cross is now decorated, so as to refer the homage to Christ 
crucified. 

On the other hand, the toe of the Sultan is kissed at Constan- 
tinople in puris naturalibus. Only officials of the most exalted, 
rank are admitted to this treat. Others may but touch the 
fringe of his scarf with their lips, whilst the lowest of all must 
content themselves with a simple obeisance. All through the 
ceremony the Sultan sits immovable, like a statue that sees and 
hears nothing, the while his subjects defile before him with every 
mark of the most servile respect. 

Kite-Flying Festival. (Chinese, Chung- Yang- Ghieh or Teng 
Kao, literally, " ascending high.") On the ninth day of the ninth 
month in the Chinese calendar the Celestials of all ages repair 
to suburban hills to drink and amuse themselves, and to fly curi- 
ous kites of extraordinary shapes and gaudily painted. Cen- 
turies ago, the legend runs, a certain man was warned in a 
dream that a misfortune was about to overtake his household on 
a given day. So he took his family out for the day, and amused 
himself with flying kites on a lofty hill. On returning in the 
evening to his homestead he found that his house had fallen in, 
and that his pigs and dogs had been buried in the ruins. Every 
year witnesses the flight of millions of kites on the hills of 
China in memory of the circumstance. In some mysterious way 
the kites are supposed to carry aloft the evils which may be 
impending over the households of the fliers, and when the 
strings are cut the kites, like the scapegoat of old, are believed 
to bear away into the wilderness the evils incurred by wrong- 
doings. 

Kosher. (Hebrew, "clean," in contradistinction to trejpha^ 
" unclean.") The name given by the Jews to meat which is killed 
in the manner authorized by Moses. The schochat, or killer, must 
be cool, wary, exjierienced, well grounded in religion, and of good 
moral character, and he must have passed a satisfactory exami- 
nation before the chief rabbi and received a license. The sche- 
chita, or killing, is so conducted as to insure the complete effu- 
sion of blood ; for the Israelites are forbidden to eat blood. The 
ox or other quadruped is bound fast, and the windpipe is cut 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 605 

through with a long and very sharp-edged knife. No unneces- 
sary pressure on the throat is allowed. The upper end of the 
knife is first put to the throat, it is then pushed over to the 
lower part of the blade, and the knife is drawn back and then 
forward. JS'o stoppage must occur during the operation. Now 
comes the bedigah, or examination of the instrument and the 
victim. If there be the slightest nick in the edge of the knife 
the meat cannot be eaten, as the cut would not be clean, the nick 
would cause a thrill to pass through the beast, and consequently 
repel the blood again through the veins. Lungs, liver, heart, — 
the whole animal, in short, is carefully looked over. Any organic 
lesion, any inflammation or fracture, condemns the whole as 
trepha. If the examination be satisfactory, a tag attached to 
each half of a beef is proof of its gastronomic value. This tag 
gives the name of the killer and the date of the killing. 

Kwanyin, Feast of. In Chinese mythology, Kwanyin is the 
goddess of mercy and fecundity. Sometimes she holds an infant 
in her arms in an attitude which irresistibly reminds a Christian 
of the conventional pictures of the Madonna and Child, some- 
times she is represented standing on a lotos-flower, pouring the 
water of plenty upon the thirsty earth. Tradition says she was 
born on the 19th of the second month (see Calendar) : hence 
that is the annual date of her festival. It is especially celebrated 
by married women who desire ofl'spring or whose husbands and 
children are ailing. They flock to her temples to prostrate them- 
selves before her shrine. A band usually plays in the vestibule 
of the temple, while within the sanctuary Buddhist priests con- 
duct a weird and erratic service. The women place their ofl'er- 
ings upon two tables and either sit or kneel before them. The 
priests march around them, chanting prayers in harmony with 
the music. At first the measure is slow and solemn, but gradu- 
ally the time is quickened, until at last the priests in an ecstasy 
dance and whirl around the devotees. When thoroughly ex- 
hausted, but still thrilling with excitement, they approach the 
women and announce that their prayers have been heard. 



Labor Day. An annual holiday in honor of workingmen 
and workingwomen, which in the United States is celebrated on 
the first Monday in September, and in several European countries 
on May 1. 

The idea of the American holiday seems to have been born in 



606 CURIOSITIES OF 

Boston. But the credit for the first formal movement belongs to 
New York. In 1882 Matthew Maguire, secretary of the Central 
Labor Union in that city, with the approval of the Union, cor- 
responded with the various labor organizations in the State with 
a view to setting aside one day in the year as their own holiday. 
The proposition was well received. The first Monday in Sep- 
tember was chosen. Maguire was made chairman of the com- 
mittee to arrange for the first Labor Day celebration in that 
year. 

This was so successful that it was determined to continue the 
holiday annually, and in 1883 the New York Central Labor 
Union corresponded with similar oi'ganizations throughout the 
country with a view to having celebrations elsewhere. A num- 
ber of cities responded. The holiday now began to assume a 
national character. It was endorsed as the official labor holiday 
by both the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of 
Labor. Then the work of obtaining legal recognition began. 
The legislature of New York, by an act passed April 27, 1887, 
took the initititive. 

Massachusetts, and then other States, speedily followed suit. 
Meanwhile a measure to make the holiday a national one hung 
fire in Congress until 1894. Then Eepresentative Amos Cum- 
mings took hold of the matter in the House, and Senator Kyle, 
of South Dakota, introduced a bill making Labor Day a holiday 
throughout the Union. The latter was immediately reported 
from the Senate Committee by Mr. Kyle without amendment. 
It was passed without opposition, and was signed by the Presi- 
dent and became a law^ on June 28, 1894. 

In point of fact, this declaration of Congress has legal eff^ect 
only within the District of Columbia and among government 
employees in the States ; but the moral effect was to bring about 
a general observance of the day in nearly all the States of the 
Union. Up to 1894 monster parades were held in New York 
and other cities in honor of the day, but these proved so expen- 
sive that they have been abandoned almost everywhere. The 
festival is now marked mainly by the closing of shops and ware- 
houses, by the cessation of mechanical labor (many labor unions 
impose heavy fines on members found at work thin day), and by 
picnics, excursions, and public games which are expected to fill 
the coffers of the Unions rather than deplete them. 

The American Socialists take no part in the celebration of the 
September Labor Day, choosing rather to cling to an unofficial 
holiday on May 1, which has been chosen by the labor men and 
socialists in Europe as the occasion for their annual demonstra- 
tions. In New York the evening of May Day witnesses a parade 
through the streets and a mass meeting in Union Square of the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 607 

various socialistic Unions. The mass meeting is addressed by 
prominent orators of their faith. Similar demonstrations occur 
in other large cities. But the rioting and bloodshed that have 
too often signalized the day in Europe have found no repetition 
in America. 

Lago di Piazza Navona. (It., "Lake of the Piazza Na- 
vona.") A curious Roman holiday custom which used to be 
performed on every Sunday in August. In the centre of the 
Piazza Navona is a large fountain, adorned with an obelisk and 
four colossal reclining figures, which represent the four principal 
rivers of the world. From the urns of these river-gods the 
water is allowed to stream abundantly, until a third of the 
piazza, which inclines towards the fountain, is about two feet 
deep in water. " The dry portion of the piazza," says an eye- 
witness in Blackwood's Magazine for March, 1829, "was covered 
with booths and spectators ; the surrounding windows, and the 
broad steps of the church of St. Agnes, were occupied with 
gazers ; and every eye was fixed upon the lake, which was 
crowded with numerous groups in vehicles of every class, from 
the state coach to the hay-cart, besides equestrians, led horses, 
and donkeys innumerable. In or out of this dirty puddle the 
company ride and drive round the piazza until sunset ; the 
horses neigh with delight in this cooling foot-bath, and the scene 
is varied and enlivened by the festive attire of the more opulent 
peasants and farmers, who bring their families in large hay- 
wagons to partake of this illustrious refreshment in the company 
of princes and nobles. Such is this festive inundation, in which 
some worshippers of the antique see the relics of a Roman Nau- 
machia. For this motley scene the Corso is deserted, and not a 
soul remains on Monte Pincio, except perhaps some hypochon- 
driacal Englishman." 

Lamb Ale. A festival formerly celebrated at Kidlington, in 
Oxfordshire, on Whit Monday. A fat lamb was provided. The 
maidens of the town, having th^ir thumbs tied together, were 
permitted to run after it, and she who caught the lamb with her 
mouth was declared the Lady of the Lamb. The lamb, killed 
and cleaned, was carried on a long pole before the lady and her 
companions to the green, attended with music and morris-dances 
of men and women. Next day it was served for the Lady's 
feast, and the solemnity ended. 

Lammas Day. Some suppose that the appellation comes 
from Lamb Mass. as the feudatories of the cathedral of St. Peter 
in Yinculis at York (so called, like the Church of St. Peter Out- 



608 CURIOSITIES OF 

side the Walls of Eome, in memory of St. Peter's chains and 
imprisonment) were in the habit of bringing each a lamb to 
the cathedral at the time of high mass upon the 1st of August ; 
others, that it comes from the Saxon Hlafmaesse, " Loaf Mass," 
because it was usual then to make an offering of the first-fruits 
or new bread of the Arnmonath. 

Properly this is the 1st of August. But the Act of George II. 
which established the New Style in England excepted the days 
for the commencement of Lammas rights from the operation of 
the statute. Therefore Lammas Day at present is August 13. 
It is a day full of antique survivals, but the one great custom 
which marks it as a link with a very remote past is the removal 
of the fences from many lands throughout the country, and the 
throwing open to common pasturage of lands which till this day 
from the end of last Lammastide had been used as private prop- 
erty. "Wherever," says Mr. G. Laurence Gomme, "we find 
Lammas customs in England we may take it for granted that it 
is the last remaining link of a whole group of customs which 
together make up the history of the primitive village community. 
It is curious to observe with what various degrees of integrity 
customs have lived in various parts of the country. In some 
places, for instance, we find only the bare mention of Lammas- 
tide, and the throwing down of fences and the consequent open- 
ing of the land to common. In other places there is much more 
at the back of this single Lammas custom ; there is sufficient to 
enable us to open the great book of comparative politics, and to 
take our studies back to that ancient Aryan land, India, or even 
still further back in the history of primitive society, the native 
savages of Africa." 

Lamprey Pie at Christmas. The lamprey has been asso- 
ciated with royalty ever since the time of Henry I. of England, 
who was inordinately fond of the fish and is said to have brought 
on his last sickness by indulging too copiously despite the advice 
of his physicians. It has been an intermittent custom of the 
city of Gloucester to present to the sovereign at Christmas a 
lamprey pie with a raised crust. As Henry I. frequently held 
his court at Gloucester during the Christmas season, it may have 
originated in his time. In 1530 the prior of Llanthony at Glou- 
cester sent "cheise carp and baked lampreys" to Henry YIII. 
at Windsor, for which the bearer received twenty shillings. It 
was also customary at the commencement of the fishing season 
to send to the sovereign the first lamprey caught in the river. 

During the Commonwealth it appears from the following entry 
in the corporation minutes that the pie was sent to the members 
for the City : 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 609 

" Itern. Paid to Thomas SuflSeld, cook, fur lamprey pies sent 
to our Parliament men, £08 OO5. OOd." 

In 1752 it seems to have been the custom to present a 1am- 
•prey pie to the Prince of Wales, as appears by Mr. Jesse's book 
" George Selwyn and his Contemporaries" (vol. i. p. 153), where 
is printed the following letter from Mr. Alderman Harris to 
George Selwyn, then M. P. for Gloucester : 

" Gloucester, 15tli January, 1752. 

"Sir, — At the request of Mr. Mayor, whose extraordinary 
hurry of business will not afford him leisure to direct himself, I 
am desired to acquaint you that by the Gloucester waggon this 
week is sent the usual present of a lamprey pie from this Cor- 
poration to His Eoyal Highness the Prince of Wales. It is 
directed to you ; and I am further to request the favour of you 
to have the same presented with the compliments of this body, 
as your late worthy father used to do. 

" Sir, your most obedient humble servant, 

" Gab. Harris. 

"P.S. — The waggoner's inn is the King's Head, in the Old 
Change." (Wotes and Queries, Second Series, vol. ix. p. 184.) 

The custom of presenting the sovereign with a lamprey pie 
was revived in 1893, not at Christmas, but in May, when a beau- 
tiful pie with finely moulded paste, and enamelled silver skewers 
that also served as spoons, was sent to Queen Victoria by the 
city of Gloucester. 

Lavanda, La. (It., " The Washing.") This terra is applied 
ecclesiastically to two ceremonies in the Catholic Church. One 
is the washing of the pilgrims' feet on Maundy Thursday (g. v. ; 
also Pilgrimage), the other the washing of the altars on the 
same day. At St. Peter's in Eome the latter ceremony is per- 
formed with special solemnity. There the lavanda of the high 
altar occurs after the Tenebrse (q. v.), at seven o'clock in the 
evening. Only a few huge candles placed in candelabra at some 
distance from one another relieveUihe darkness. The sacristans 
of the chapter begin by divesting the altar of the cloths which 
usually cover it, then on a table by its side they place seven 
crystal vases filled with wine and water, and two silver basins, 
one of which contains seven sponges, the other seven towels. 
Then the canons approach the altar, bearing aspersories of box- 
wood or yew. They are followed by acolytes and clerics. Last 
of all comes the dean. 

Arriving at the foot of the altar, they kneel and say a silent 
prayer. The dean then mounts the altar with six assistant 
canons. Yases are presented to the dean and each of the canons. 

39 



610 CURIOSITIES OF 

The latter sprinkle a few drops over the marble top of the altar 
and yield their places to the other canons, who come up in suc- 
cessive companies of six to go through the same operation. 

When the altar has been well washed, the six assistant canons 
return to the side of the dean and dry the altar, first with 
sponges and then with towels. 

In old Catholic England the cross after its adoration on 
Good Friday used to be washed with wine and water, and the 
ablution given to the priests and people to drink after the com- 
munion, in memory of the blood and water which flowed from 
the side of the crucified Eedeemer. 

A curious survival of this washing was practised at Glentham 
Church, Lincolnshire, until about 1830. A large recumbent 
efligy lies in the western end of the church, with a wooden stair- 
case leading to a gallery erected over a portion of it. It is 
locally known as Molly Grime, — a possible corruption of the 
Malgraen, or Holy Image, of an ancient local dialect. Seven 
elderly ladies were wont to receive a shilling each, every Good 
Friday, as a payment for washing this figure with waier from 
Newell's Well, in the same parish. Anciently the washing of an 
effigy of the dead Christ on Good Friday, and strewing his bier 
witii flowers, previous to a mock entombment, formed a special 
observance here. The ceremony was performed by virgins, clad 
in mourning, with water carried in procession from the adjacent 
well. 

Lawrence, St., patron Saint of Nuremberg, Genoa, and the 
Escorial. His festival is celebrated on August 10. 

Historically little is known of this saint, and the time and 
place of his birth are matters of doubt. But legends are plen- 
tiful. According to these, he was born in Aragon, and when 
young went to Eome and served Sixtus II. as deacon. When 
this Pope was led to martyrdom St. Lawrence begged to be al- 
lowed to suffer with him. Sixtus told him that he would follow 
him in three days, and bade him distribute the treasures of the 
Church to the poor. The prefect, having beard that the treas- 
ures were in the care of Lawrence, ordered him to deliver them 
up, but the saint collected a crowd of the poor among whom he 
had divided the treasures, and said that the poor people were the 
treasures of the Church. After suffering various tortures, he 
was stretched on an iron bed made of bars like u gridiron, and 
roasted over a fire kindled beneath. His remains were buried 
in the Via Tiburtina. In the reign of Constantine the Great a 
church was built in honor of St. Lawrence over his tomb. A 
great number of churches have been dedicated to him. He is 
called by the Eoman people "II Cortese Spagnuolo" ("the cour- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 611 

teous Spaniard"), because it is related that, two hundred years 
after his death, when his sarcophagus was opened to receive the 
rehcs of St. Stephen, the skeleton of St. Lawrence courteously 
moved to the left and gave the place of honor on the right to 
St. Stephen. St. Lawrence is usually painted in the dress of an 
archdeacon, and bears a palm and a gridiron. Sometimes he 
carries a dish full of money, and the cross, to signify his oflSce 
of treasurer to the Church. The gridiron varies in size, and is 
sometimes embroidered on his robe, and sometimes borne in his 
hand or suspended around his neck ; and again he puts his foot 
on it in sign of triumph. 

The church of St. Lawrence Jewry, London, erected to his 
name, bears a gridiron on the steeple. Eobinson says, " Philip 
II. of Spain, having won a battle on the 10th of August, the 
festival of St. Lawrence, vowed to consecrate a palace, a church, 
and a monastery to his honor. Accordingly he built the Escorial, 
the largest palace in Europe. This immense quarry consists of 
several courts, all disposed in the shape of a gridiron. The bars 
form several courts, and the royal family occupy the handle. 
Gridirons are met with in every part of the building. There 
are sculptured gridirons, painted gridirons, iron and marble 
gridirons ; there are gridirons over the doors, in the windows, in 
the galleries, and in the yards. Never was an instrument of 
martyrdom so multiplied, honored, and celebrated." 

The gridiron on which St. Lawrence suffered is preserved in 
the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, Eome. Two churches in 
the same city preserve portions of his melted fat, a pot full of 
which was likewise presented to the Escorial by Pope Gregory 
XIII. Eibs, arms, and shoulder-blades of the saint are scattered 
through many Eoman churches. 

Leap-Year. This was known as the Bissextile year, for 
reasons explained under Calendar. The origin of the English 
name is harder to trace. Many theories have been framed. 
None is quite satisfactory. Some look on it as a reference to the 
fact that the gentleman whom v^e are enjoined to take by the 
forelock, — Old Time himself, in short, — instead of passing over 
his accustomed ground during that period, takes an extraordi- 
nary leap to the extent of a day more. 

Another hypothesis makes the name a misnomer. If the 
fourth year had consisted of three hundred and sixty-four days, 
if the difference had been one of defect instead of excess, a day 
would really have been leaped over. As it is, the three ordinary 
years would more properly be denominated leap-years. Or we 
may suppose the fourth year had been denominated leap-year 
on the principle lucus a non lucendo. Probably the most worthy 



612 CURIOSITIES OF 

supposition as to the origin of the term is that, at first, the extra 
day in the fourth year and the one before it were one in the eye 
of the law. Accordingly, the regular day was considered that 
one, and the additional day, though civilly held as a day, was 
legally not so. It was missed or leaped over altogether. So 
that the legal year as opposed to the civil was in reality a leap- 
year. 

What is the origin of the gallant and delicate privilege which 
is extended on leap-year to the fairer half of creation ? Myth 
and history both have something to say on the matter. Myth 
refers it to no less a personage than St. Patrick. And this is the 
story : 

As St. Patrick was perambulating the shores of Lough Neagh, 
after having driven the frogs out of the bogs and the snakes out 
of the grass, he was accosted by St. Bridget, who with many 
tears and lamentations informed him that dissension had arisen 
among the ladies in her nunnery over the fact that they were 
debarred the privilege of "popping the question." 

It will be remembered that in Bridget's day celibacy, although 
approved by the Church as the proper life of a religious, and 
consequently made binding upon the individual by a private 
vow, was not enforced as a general and absolute rule for the 
clergy. 

St. Patrick — a sternly single man himself — was yet so far 
moved that he offered to concede to the ladies the privilege of 
proposing one year in every seven. But at this St. Bridget 
demurred, and, throwing her arms about his neck, exclaimed, 
" Arrah ! Pathrick, jewel, I daurn't go back to the gurls wid such 
a proposal. Mek it wan year in four." 

To which St. Patrick replied, " Biddy, acushla, squeeze me that 
way again, and I'll give you leap-year, the longest one of the 
lot." 

St. Bridget, thus encouraged, bethought herself of her own 
husbandless condition, and accordingly popped the question to 
St. Patrick herself. But he had taken the vow of celibacy : so 
he had to patch up the difficulty as best he could with a kiss and 
a silk gown. 

"And ever since then," concludes the legend, which, it is need- 
less to say, is not found in Butler's " Lives of the Saints" or in 
any other work of hagiological authority, " if a man refuses a 
leap-year proposal he must pay the penalty of a silk gown and 
a kiss." 

So much for legend. And now for history. In the year 1288 
the following law is said to have been passed in Scotland : 

" It is statut and ordaint that during the rein of hir maist 
blissit Megeste, for ilk yeare knowne as lepe yeare, ilk mayden 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 613 

ladye of bothe highe and lowe estait shall hae liberie to bespeke 
ye man she likes, albeit he refuses to taik hir to be his lawl'al 
wyfe, he shall be mulcted in ye sum ane pundis or less, as his 
estait may be ; except and awis gif he can make it appeare that 
he is betrothit ane ither woman he then shall be free." A few 
years later a similar law was passed in France and received the 
approval of the king. It is also said that before Columbus sailed 
on his famous voyage a similar privilege was granted to the 
maidens of Genoa and Florence. There is no record of any fines 
imposed under the Scotch law nor any trace of statistics of the 
number of spinsters who took advantage of it or of the French 
enactment. 

According to a curious little book, entitled " Love, Courtship, 
and Matrimony," published in London in 1606, the English did 
not need to have the leap-year privilege forced upon them by 
statute, but allowed it to become a part of the lex non scripta : 
"Albeit it nowe become a part of the common lawe in regard to 
social relations of life, that as often as every leap yeare doth 
return, the ladyes have the sole privilege during the time it 
continueth of making love, either by wordes or lookes, as to them 
it seemeth proper; and, moreover, no man will be entitled to 
benefit of clergy who doth in any wise treat her proposal with 
slight or contumely." 

Up to within a century ago it was another unwritten law of 
leap-year that if a man should decline a proposal he should 
soften the disappointment which his answer would bring about 
by the presentation of a silk dress to the unsuccessful suitor for 
his hand. 

A curious leap-year superstition is still to be met with in some 
parts of 'New England, and that is that in leap-year the " beans 
grow on the wrong side of the pod." 

Eossini, the musical composer, was born on February 29, 1792. 
On the 29th of February, 1864, when he was seventy-two, he 
celebrated what he called his eighteenth birthday, and in the 
pleasant companionship of mutual friends declared his deliberate 
purpose to " turn over a new leaf and disregard the frivolities of 
youth, and the indiscretions of his teens." Oddly enough, Eos- 
sini's jesting enumeration of his birthdays was not correct. He 
had forgotten that the year 1800 was not a leap-year. Conse- 
quently his first birthday was in 1796 and his second not till 
1804, making February 29, 1864, the seventeenth and not the 
eighteenth birthday. 

Lent. A fast of forty week-days enjoined by the Eoman, 
Greek, and English and some other Protestant Churches as a 
preparation for Easter. TherEngUsh word comes from the Anglo- 



614 CURIOSITIES OF 

Saxon JJencten, " spring." The Italian Quaresima and the French 
Gareme are corruptions of the Latin Quadragesima^ i.e., forty, 
while the German Fastenzeit and the Dutch Vasten denote the 
fast by pre-eminence, like ij vrjareia in the Greek calendar. It is 
probable that a fast of some duration previous to the commem- 
oration of the resurrection was kept from very early times, but it 
was not till the year 840 that the date was definitively fixed for 
all Catholic Christendom from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday 
inclusive. As Sundays are not days of fasting, this makes the 
full complement of forty days, and therefore establishes an anal- 
ogy between Lent and the forty days' fast of Christ, the forty 
days spent by Moses and Elias in the wilderness, and the fort}^ 
days' grace given in the preaching of Jonah to Nineveh. But 
the term Quadragesima adopted for the forty days originally 
meant forty hours, the early Christians apparently keeping a 
rigid fast for that space of time from the afternoon of Cruci- 
fixion Day to the morning of the feast of the Eesurrection. 

The Greek Church has always kept four Lents, distributed 
quarterly throughout the year. These are kept with the utmost 
strictness. There are no lapses of meat -eating, party-giving, or 
diversions of any kind through the entire Lenten season. 

But strictness in diet is perhaps easier for the Greeks than for 
other nations less abstemious. There are hundreds of families 
who never taste meat during the entire year except on ISTcw 
Year's Day and at Easter. The foods they deny themselves, 
therefore, especially on their holiest days, Mondays, Wednes- 
days, and Fridays, are just those the Catholics permit them- 
selves, — fish, eggs, milk, and even cheese. 

In the early Church Lent was a season in which the faithful 
begged God's mercy for themselves and were therefore expected 
to show mercy to others. The money spared by fasting was 
given in alms, the Imperial laws forbade criminal processes, the 
Church reconciled penitents at the altars and imposed public 
penalties in expiation of their guilt, the Emperors released pris- 
oners, masters pardoned their slaves, and enemies became friends. 
It was a season of mourning. Hence the Church has always 
discountenanced festivities of all kinds during Lent, and forbidden 
marriages. 

The ladies wore friars' girdles at this season. Camden relates 
that Sir Thomas More, " finding his lady scolding her servants, 
endeavored to restrain her. ' Tush, tush, my lord,' said she : 
' look, here is one step to heavenward,' showing him a friar's 
girdle. ' I fear me,' said he, ' that that one step will not bring 
you one step higher.' " 

The use of flesh meat, eggs, and milk during Lent was forbidden 
in England, not only by ecclesiastical but also by statute law, even 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 615 

into the time of William III. Any violation of the law was 
followed by dire penalties. There is the case of the landlady of 
the Eose Tavern, St. Catherine's Tower, London, in whose house 
during the Lent of 1563 was found a quantity of raw and cooked 
meat. She and four other women who were proved to have par- 
taken of the forbidden viands were put in the stocks all night. 
In 1570 was passed a statute making the penalties for violating 
the Lenten laws sixt}^ shillings and three months' imprisonment. 

The chief Lenten food from very early days was fish. In the 
thirty -first year of the reign of Edward III. the following sums 
were paid from the Exchequer for fish supplied to the royal 
household : Fifty marks for five lasts red herrings (a last was 
9000) ; £12 for two lasts white herrings ; £6 for two barrels of 
sturgeon; £21 55. for 1300 stockfish; 13s. 9d. for eighty-nine 
congers ; and 20 marks for 320 mulwells. Herring pies were 
considered a great delicacy. Yarmouth by ancient charter was 
bound to send annually to the king during Lent one hundred 
herrings, baked in twenty-four pies or pasties, while in Edward 
I.'s reign Eustace de Corson and two others held thirty acres of 
land in copartnership on the tenure of supplying annually for 
the king's use on their first coming into season twenty-four 
pasties of fresh herring. The queerest of the food eaten in 
Lent were undoubtedly the whale, porpoise, grampus, and sea- 
wolf, which in those days were held to be fish. 

The Church granted dispensations to the sick and infirm whose 
phj'Sicians certified that they required flesh meat during Lent. 
A curious formal record of such dispensation occurs in the parish 
register of Wakefield : 

" To all people to whom these presents shall come, James Lis- 
ter, Yicar of Wakefeld, and preacher of God's word, sendeth 
greeting: Whereas Alice Lister wife of Eichard Lister clerke 
who now soiourneth wth her sonne Willm Paulden of Wakefeld, 
by reason of her old age & many years & state, and long-con- 
tynued sickness is become so weake, and her stomack so colde, 
not able to digest colde meates & fish, who by the counsell of 
Physicions is advised to absteine from and to forbeare the eateng 
of all manner of fruits, fish and milke meates : Know yee there- 
fore for the causes aforesaide and for the better strengthening & 
recovery of her health, 1 the saide James Lister do hereby give 
& grant libertie and licence to her the saide Alice Lister att her 
will and pleasure att all tymes, as well during the tyme of Lent, 
as upon other fasting daies and fish daies (exhibiting by the laws 
to eate flesh) to dresse and eate such kind of fleshe as shal be 
best agreing to her stomach & weake appetite. In witnes 
hereof I the saide James Lister have hereunto sett my hand the 
eight day of fl'ebuary in the sixt year of the Eeine of our Sover- 



616 CURIOSITIES OF 

aigne Lord Charles by the grace of God King of England Scot- 
land ifrance and Ireland Defender of the Faith &c. and in the 
yeare of our Lord god 1630. James Lister Yicar." 

The Puritans defied both law and custom in the matter of 
Lenten fare. " I have often noted," writes Taylor, in his " Jack 
a Lent," " that if any superfluous, feasting or gormandizing, 
paunch-cramming assembly do meet, it is so ordered that it must 
be either in Lent, upon a Friday, or a fasting : for the meat doth 
not relish well except it be sauced with disobedience and con- 
tempt of authority. And though they eat sprats on a Sunday, they 
care not, so that they may be full gorged on the Friday night." 

James II. in 1687 by public proclamation in the London 
Gazette enjoined abstinence from meat, adding that, under cer- 
tain conditions of almsgiving to the poor, licenses to eat meat 
might be obtained from an office in St. Paul's Churchyard. Next 
year the Eevolution occurred. The statutes enforcing Lenten 
fare remained a dead letter on the books until so recently as 
1863, when they were repealed by the Statute Law Eevision Act. 

By the Anglican Church, and the other Episcopal Churches 
affiliated with it. Lent at present is observed in a modified way. 
Moderate abstinence in the use of food is recommended, and an 
intermission of gayety and pleasure, that more time may be 
devoted to religious reflection, to contemplation, and to more ex- 
tended public devotions, — the churches being constantly open for 
the latter purpose. 

In Eome at the present day Lent is full of movement and 
of interest to the spectator who allows himself no stomachic 
vacation from the foods he likes best. Dancing is indeed 
eschewed by the orthodox, but evening receptions are more 
plentiful than ever. If theatres are closed, concert-rooms are 
open all the more ; and every day there is a " station" at some 
church or other which is indicated in the "Diario Eomano." 
For many a little church which is perhaps shut up almost all the 
rest of the year this Lenten station is the gayest day of the 
three hundred and sixty-five. The street near it is strewed with 
sand and boxwood ; the unfailing beggars line the approach and 
take up their position on the steps ; carriages are seen before the 
door, and the pavement within is crowded with kneeling people, 
among whom the visitor who is led by curiosity rather than by 
devotion winds in and out in search of what is to be seen. 

In Spanish countries Lent was represented as an old woman, 
and in places the children would go about the streets dressed 
fantastically, beating drums, shaking rattles, and crying, — 

Saw down the old woman ; 
Saw down the old woman. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



617 



At midnight the commonalty, taking up the cry, would march 
about the streets and knock at every door, shouting, — 

Saw down the old "woman ; 
Saw down the old woman, 

concluding the ceremony by sawing in two the figure of an old 
woman representing Lent. 

In Naples there still lingers obsolescently a custom which was 
once extremely popular. This is the making of the Quaresima 
(literally, "Lent"), an eflSgy symbolical of the Lenten season, 
a small rag doll wearing a black gown and a white head-dress. 




Lenten Preparations. 
(From a mediaeval German print.) 

which seem to be a rough imitation of the conventual garb. In 
her hand she carries a distaff heavily laden with flax, and a 
spindle. She has no legs, but where they ought to be is a pointed 
stick, one end of which is thrust into her body, while the other 
supports an orange. Seven quills are stuck into the fruit, to 
denote the seven weeks of Lent. Below the orange is suspended 
an osier hoop, to which are hung specimens of the various kinds 
of food permitted during Lent, as well as two small bottles, one 
filled with wine and the other with spirits. On Ash Wednesday 
she is either hung from a single window or more usually dangled 
from the middle of a rope whose ends are fastened to opposite 
windows across the street. Every Saturday in Lent one of the 
seven quill feathers is pulled out, amid great rejoicing. 

On Holy Saturday La Quaresima is lowered from her high 
position and placed upon her pyre. A packet of gunpowder is 



618 CURIOSITIES OF 



i 



fastened under the rough gown, which by this time has become 
sadly shabby and weather-worn, and the little bonfire is lighted. 
Then, when the puppet flies blazing through the air, squibs and 
crackers are let off, and everyone rejoices that the fast is almost 
at an end. ]^o meat must be eaten for this one day more, it is 
true, but cakes and confectionery afford a dainty foretaste of the 
coming feast. 

Two popular legends give conflicting accounts of the personality 
of La Quaresima. In one she is represented as an aged and 
shrivelled personage who on. midnight of Shrove Tuesday at the 
time when the good Carnival was at the height of his jollity ap- 
peared to interrupt the festivities. Carnival asked his old enemy 
why she had left her nunnery to trouble the world, since she 
brought only the things that everybody disliked and the things 
everybody hated, to which she replied that Carnival himself 
was a good-for-nothing prodigal and spendthrift, who would soon 
ruin the world if she did not come to set matters right. Finally 
Carnival fled before her eloquence. But the men and women 
who loved him and hated her fell upon the old witch and finally 
beat her to death. 

In the otber legend Quaresima is no nun, but the wife of Car- 
nival, who is greatly provoked at his riotous living and the good 
things he demands and devours day by day, and the quarrel ends 
by the husband thrusting the distaff into the wife's hands and 
bidding her spin on and remain as lean as she has always been. 

The Sundays in Lent are known theologically as First, Second, 
and so on. An old rhyme thus gives their popular names : 

Tid, mid, and misera, 
Carling, Palm, Pase-Egg Day. 

The meanings of the first three words are hopelessly lost, 
though probably connected with obsolete services for the days. 

Carling Sunday is now better known as Mid-Lent or Mothering 
Sunday. Pase-Egg Day is Easter. 

On the first Sunday in Lent many German rural districts held 
their burning-wheel celebrations, which have now been trans 
ferred to St. John's Eve. In the Eifel Mountains of Ehenish 
Prussia a great wheel was made of straw and dragged by three 
horses to the top of a hill. Thither the village boys marched at 
nightfall, set fire to the wheel, and sent it rolling down the slope. 
In the Ehon Mountains of Bavaria the people would march to 
the top of some eminence. Children and lads carried torches, 
brooms daubed with tar, and poles swathed in straw. A wheel 
wrapped in straw was kindled and rolled down the hill, and the 
young people rushed about the fields with burning torches and 
brooms, till at last they flung them in a heap, and, standing 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 619 

around ihera, struck up a hymn or a popular song. Sometimes 
the object was explained to be " to drive away the wicked 
sower," sometimes as a propitiation of the Virgin, that she 
might preserve the fruits of the earth throughout the year and 
bless them. (Farrar : The Golden Bough, vol. ii. pp. 248, 249.) 

Leonard, St. (Lat. Leonardus ; It. Leonardo; Fr. Leonard 
or Lienard ; Bavarian, Leonharf), patron saint of prisoners and 
slaves, and in Bavaria of cattle. His festival occurs on the 6th 
of November. 

Brought up at the court of King Tbeodebert of France, St. 
Leonard took a great interest in prisoners and did all in his 
power to relieve them. Weary of court life, he finally retired 
to a wilderness near Limoges and became a hermit. One day 
the king and queen with a retinue rode by to tbe chase. The 
queen was taken with the pains of childbirth near the saint's 
retreat ; he appeared and prayed for the queen, who was safely 
delivered. The king in gratitude gave the saint a portion of 
the forest, which he cleared, and founded a religious community. 
He would never accept a higher office in the Church than that 
of deacon. He died about 560. In a list of holidays published 
at Worcester in 1240 St. Leonard's festival is ordered to be kept 
as a half-holiday, and all labor save that of the plough is pro- 
hibited. In the Bavarian highlands and other portions of the 
German Alps he is especially reverenced as the patron of cattle. 
His portrait hangs in front of each stable door, and displays the 
saint with uplifted crosier ; at his feet, a ewe ; to the right, a 
foal ; and to the left, a sick ox. For these as patients St. Leon- 
ard is summoned as phj^sician.in ordinary, but, as nowadays all 
are speciajists, his assistance is not so much required. He has 
multiplied by himself, and is adored in many localities with a 
different object : in one place he is especially famed as a healer 
for horses, in another for cows, and in still other places (as 
child-doctor) for calves. 

His festival, known as the Leonhartsfahrt, is celebrated 
everywhere in the highlands, and-with especial ceremony in the 
little church of Fischhausen, which lies at the end of the 
Schliersee, in Prussia. Unless it falls on the Sabbath it is post- 
poned to the succeeding Sunday, when wagons crowned with 
plaits of pine branches and harnessed with powerful horses ap- 
proach the church from all sides. Above their collars waves a 
red cloth. In the wagon itself sits the master, with his mate, 
in Sunday attire. Those who cannot produce a four-in-hand 
come with a pair, or a simple one-horse vehicle wherein there is 
room enough for both man and wife. The servant drives neigh- 
ing horses ; others approach mounted, and amicably call upon 



620 CURIOSITIES OF 

their stallion not to obstruct the ancient rite. The cattle, also, 
returned from the pastures, are in many parts brought to the 
Leonhartsfahrt, and the shepherdess, in trim bodice, who drives 
them, wears an extra bunch of flowers to-day on her pointed hat. 

Before the procession marches, there is held a solemn mass. 
The clear voices of the children and the full tones of the organ 
swell from the little church, while the crowd stands before the 
open door in quiet devotion. 

After divine service, the course commences : each wagon 
drives around three times at a rapid trot ; vehicles and postilions 
are mixed up pell-mell ; the arches of leaves which are erected 
over each carriage, and which enframe the passengers, shake 
with the commotion ; the variegated pennants which adorn the 
two sides of the wagon flutter in the breeze, and many a passing 
word, many a greeting, flies among the motley throng. 

The stalls, also, which are to-day erected under the lime-trees, 
filled with all sorts of pretty trifles, have plenty of visitors, and 
the fair peasants purchase here their silken neckerchiefs, and 
also take sugar-drops for the children. At last the strange 
crowd disperses. There is a dance in the " Neuhaus." Every 
festival ends with a frolic. Old and young are collected, and 
none but the most feeble rest. They go and sit with folded 
hands near the sunny wall. Their grandchildren are in the 
dance. They listen. The melodies are the same that they 
themselves danced to forty and fifty jxars before. Most of those 
that then were gay are dead, only the hills and the valleys and 
the customs remain, and they gaze and weep inward tears, while 
upon their withered faces there rest smiles that belie themselves, 
and are not happy, but only sad ^nd mournful. (TAe Bavarian 
Highlands and the Salzkammergut, by Herman Schmid and Karl 
Stieler. London : Chapman and Hall, 1875.) 

Liberalia. An ancient Eoman festival, celebrated on the 
17th of March, in honor of the Eoman deity Liber, who was 
identified by the Eomans of classical times with the Greek 
Dionysos, the god of wine. But wine was placed by the ancient 
Eomans under the special protection of Jupiter, the god of the 
atmosphere and weather ; they had no special god of wine ; and 
Liber, as the name indicates, was associated with the idea of 
freedom. On this day the boy who had reached a suitable age 
(usually seventeen) was formally admitted to manhood. He laid 
aside his boyish toga with purple border — toga prcetexta — and 
assumed that of a man, the plain robe of unbleached wool, — toga 
virilis ; the hulla^ or ornament worn about the neck of the child, 
was consecrated to the lares^ or household gods, after which the 
young man was conducted by his father or guardian to the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 621 

Forum, where he appeared as a citizen. The day ended with a 
sacrifice and a banquet, and now for the first time he bore a 
name of his own. This was the celebration of the day for 
young men coming into manhood. The citizens at large offered 
on this day little sweet cakes to Liber, which were sold in the 
streets by old women crowned with ivy, who had with them 
portable hearths or altars for the use of the votaries. 

Lich- or Corpse-Gate. The word lich means " corpse," and 
the fundamental idea of the lich-gate is that of a resting-place 
at the entrance to the churchyard, where the coffin may be set 
down. This was primarily for the benefit of the pall-bearers, as 
most of the old English churches are set well back from the 
street. It is also customary to set down the coffin while the 
bier is brought from the church. The coffin is placed on the 
bier and carried into the church. This has been long the custom 
at the Church of the Transfiguration. The rubrical direction in 
the Prayer Book now in use says that the priest and clerks are 
to meet the body at the entrance to the churchyard, but Prayer 
Books printed in the sixteenth century direct that the body shall 
be met at the church stile or lich gate. The gate also serves as 
a general entrance to the churchyard. 

It is known that lich gates existed in England thirteen cen- 
turies ago, but comparatively few remain, and hardly any of 
these are more than four hundred years old. The explanation is 
that at first most of the gates were built entirely of wood. 
These have disappeared by decay. Most of the older remaining 
lich-gates are found in wide-spread parishes and mountainous 
districts. They are most common in Devon, Cornwall, and 
Wales. In olden times the body was borne to its burial by 
friends or neighbors, and where the distances were great the 
time of arrival was somewhat uncertain, and the lich gate, being 
roofed, afforded shelter on rainy days and a waiting-place at all 
times. 

The most common form of the lich-gate is a simple shed com- 
posed of a roof with two gable ends, covered with either tiles 
or thatch, and supported by strong timbers, well braced together. 
Frequently, however, they are built of stone, and they vary 
greatly in the manner of construction. At Berry Harbor is a 
lich-gate in the form of a cross. At Troutbeck, in Westmore- 
land, there are three lich-gates in one churchyard. Some of the 
gates have chambers over them. At Tavistock there is a small 
room on each side of the gate, having seats on three sides and a 
table in the centre. In this, as in some other cases, provision is 
made either for the distribution of alms or for the rest and re- 
freshment of funeral attendants. It was once a common custom 



622 



CURIOSITIES OF 



Ski funerals, especially in Scotland, to hold a feast at the church 
gate. These feasts sometimes led to great excesses. The custom) 
has been discontinued, but it may afford an explanation of the] 
purpose for which the lich-gate rooms were built. 

In some gates lich-stones are found. Frequently such stones! 
are found without the gate. The lich-stone is used as a rest for 
the coffin. It is either oblong, with the ends of equal width, or 
in the shape of the ancient coffin, narrower at one end than at 
the other, but without any bend at the shoulder. It stands atj 
the centre of the entrance, and has on each side stone seats oi 
which the bearers rest while the coffin remains on the stonej 
Yery rarely lich-stones are found at a distance from the church- 
yard, being doubtless intended as rests for the coffin on its waj 
to burial. It is thought the several beautiful crosses erected b^ 
King Edward I. at the points where the body of his queen, 
Eleanor, rested on its way from Herdeby, in Lincolnshire, t( 
Westminster were built over the lich-stones on which her coffii 
was placed. 

Life-Boat Saturday. The third Saturday in May is devote( 
under this name to the exploitation of the Life-Saving Servic( 
in many of the inland and other provincial towns of Greal 
Britain. On May 16, 1896, the observance extended for the first 
time to London, the hall and the gardens of the Imperial Insti- 
tute being surrendered for the purpose. Members of the Naj 
tional Life-BoaL Institution and of the Ambulance Brigades, an(' 
other coast-guard institutions, give exhibitions of their prowess, 
and there are processions by the guardsmen boys from the train- 
ing-ships and by the boys and girls of the orphan asylums sup- 
ported by the Life-Boat Institution. The proceeds of the various 
celebrations all over the kingdom, which in individual cities have 
often run up to thousands of pounds, are devoted as far as possi- 
ble to making provision for men injured, disabled, or superannu 
ated, and for the widows and orphans of those who die in the] 
service. 



Lilies of Nola. (It. Gigli di Nola.) The little city of ]N'ola, 
near Naples, on every June 24 (the feast of its patron, St. Paul- 
inus) is the scene of a curious annual ceremony known by this 
name. Originally these lilies may have been merely pyramids 
of flowers carried in a procession in honor of the saint. To-day] 
they are huge turreted structures, eighty or ninety feet high,] 
adorned with statues, ornamental friezes, bass-reliefs, and em-l 
blems, and built on movable platforms which are borne on the! 
shoulders of some twoscore facchini, or porters, who carry 
them through the streets of the town. Not only that, but the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. ■ 623 

facchini actually dance the steps of the tarantella in the Square 
of St. Paulinus around the statue of the saint prior to the start 
of the parade. A fanfara^ or band of trumpeters, snugly en- 
sconced in the first-floor balcony of each lily, sets the proper 
pace. 

These lilies are built at the expense of the eight town guilds, — 
tailors, carpenters, shoemakers, blacksmiths, grocers, butchers, 
bakers, and agriculturists. The ensign or emblem of the par- 
ticular guild is displayed above each : a man's waistcoat for 
the tailors ; an adze for the carpenters ; a last for the shoe- 
makers ; an iron anvil for the smiths ; a flask of wine and a 
cheese for the grocers ; a horned ox-head for the butchers ; a loaf 
of bread for the bakers; a sheaf of wheat for the agriculturists. 
Small boys infest the rigging, and a triumphal female sits in 
state under the central arch. Each lily weighs about three tons 
and costs about three hundred dollars. The filigree ornaments 
are all done in paste and papier-mache. Hence they must be 
done in a hurrj', else an accidental shower might melt them 
back into paste. 

But on June 24, if that be a fine day, these Aladdin structures, 
these births of a single night, present a most decorative appear- 
ance. They are borne in solemn procession behind the image of 
the saint, and all I^ola goes wild with dehght. 

Lincoln's Birthday. Abraham Lincoln was born in Ken- 
tucky on February 12, 1809. He was shot in Washington on 
April 14, and died on the morning of April 15, 1865. Twenty- 
two years after his death (on Februarv 12, 1887) the Ecpublican 
Club of New York city gave its initial Lincoln dinner, with 
Benjamin F. Harrison, Chauncey M. Depew, Frank Hiscock, 
and others among the orators. The Lincoln dinner has ever 
since been celebrated by the club on the recurring anniversary^, 
and has proved the parent of many similar commemorations. 
In Illinois, of which State Lincoln was a resident when elected 
to the Presidency, a movement was initiated to make his birth- 
day a legal holiday. In 1892 the ^legislature acceded to the pop- 
ular wish. In 1896, New York, Minnesota, New Jersey, and 
Washington followed in the wake of Illinois. An unsuccessful 
attempt was made in the Fifty-Third Congress to have the holi- 
day declared national. 

Lion Sermon. An annual sermon preached on the 16th of 
October in every year at the church of St. Katherine Cree, 
Leadenhall Street, London, in commemoration of the miraculous 
deliverance of Sir John Gayer, whilom mayor of London. 

Sir John Gayer was a mer(.hant venturer, and accompanied an 



624 



CURIOSITIES OF 



expedition to the East, when, getting separated from the cara- 
van at night, he found himself confronted by lions, praj-ed the 
prayer of Daniel for deliverance, and his life was saved. That 
night was the 16th of October, — the date commemorated by this 
annual sermon. Another notable episode in the life of Sir John 
Gayer as lord mayor was his committal to the Tower, with four 
aldermen, for refusing to comply with the demand which Par- 
liament, in 1647, when it no longer represented the nation, made 
upon the Corporation of London for a subsidy for the troops. 
That incarceration probably hastened Sir John's death. He 
died in the good old faith in which he had lived, and left money 
for the maintenance of the " Lion Sermon," which records his 
memory and his wonderful deliverance. 

Llechllafar. (Welsh, " Speaking Stone.") A famous slab of 
marble, described by Giraldus as ten feet in length, six feet in 
breadth, and one foot in thickness, which anciently formed a 
stepping-stone across the little river Alan opposite the west front 
of the cathedral of St. David's in Wales. Its place is now taken 
by a bridge of rugged stone, built probably in the fifteenth cen- 
tury. The stone was regarded with peculiar reverence from the 
circumstance that it occasionally exercised the faculty of speech, 
and it was held unlawful to pollute it by the presence of a dead 
body. Once, in violation of the prohibition, a corpse was carried 
across it. It broke out into indignant remonstrance ; but the 
exertion was too much for it, and it split in consequence. Merlin 
foretold that on this stone a king of England, returning from 
the conquest of Ireland, was destined to die, wounded by a red- 
handed man, a prediction applied to Henry II. by a woman whose 
petition he had rejected. The king stopped, made an oration to 
the stone, and, according to Giraldus (Itin. Cambr., ii. 1), passed 
over undaunted and scathless, to make his orisons at the shrine 
of St. David. 

The following note of one John Hooker, alias Yowell, on 
Holinshed's " Chronicle of Ireland," p. 25, is interesting : 

" The writer hereof (of vere purpose), in the year 1575, went 
to the aforesaid place to see the said stone, but there was no such 
to be found ; and the place where the said stone was said to be 
is now an arched bridge, under which fleeteth the brook afore- 
said. . . . And for the veritie of the foresaid stone there is no 
certaintie affirmed, but a report is remaining amongst the 
common people of such a stone to have been there in times 
past." 

Loch-mo-Naire. A lake in Strathnavon, Sutherlandshire, 
Scotland, famous for its supposed miraculous healing qualities. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 625 

Tradition, as usual, has its easy explanation as to the manner 
in which the loch obtained its peculiar virtues and the name 
which it now bears. A woman had somehow become the pos- 
sessor of bright crystal stones which when placed in water had 
the power of rendering the liquid an infallible cure for all "the 
ills to which flesh is heir." The fame of the wonder-working 
pebbles soon spread far and wide. As it spread it excited the 
cupidity of a member of the neighboring clan Gordon, who de- 
termined to secure the miraculous crystals for the exclusive use 
of himself and his kin. To make sure of his purpose, he feigned 
sickness. As soon, however, as he presented himself, the woman 
divined his intention and fled. But escape was impossible, as she 
was advanced in years and her pursuer had youth and swiftness 
on his side. Yet rather than surrender her charm-stones she 
threw them into the first lake to which she came, exclaiming, as 
she did, Mo naire ! — z.e., " shame !" — and declaring that its waters 
should heal all who dipped in them or drank of them, excepting 
such as belonged to the accursed Gordon tribe. 

This tradition, like many a similar one, is evidently very much 
more recent than the superstition connected with the lake. Loch- 
mo-Naire does not really mean " the loch of shame," but " the 
serpent's loch," — the word for serpent, nathair, being pronounced 
exactly in the same way as naire, " shame." This manifestly 
points to the great archaeological fact that almost everywhere 
the serpent is represented as the guardian of waters supposed 
to possess curative virtues. It is also the recognized emblem of 
^sculapius, the god of the healing art, who himself sometimes 
appeared in the form of a serpent. 

Loch-mo-^NTaire used to be visited regularly on the first Monday 
(Old Style) of each season of the year, but especially during May 
and August, which were considered the most favorable months. 
Those who went in order to be cured had to be there before mid- 
night. When the hour of twelve arrived, the voices that till 
then were loud in conversation became at once silenced, and the 
ceremonies began. The candidates for healing — the paralytic 
and the halt, the nervous and th6^ insane — had first to go, sun- 
wise, thrice round a well which springs up in a small belt of sand 
that fringes the north end of the lake, and to drink a copious 
draught of its clear, cooling water. After this preliminary rite, 
it was further necessary that they should strip and be led out 
backward into the lake. They had then to be dipped three 
times, to drink some of the water, to throw behind them a silver 
coin as a thank-ofi'ering to the spirit of the loch, and to be away 
from the spot before the break of day. It not unfrequently 
happened that while this part of the observance was being 
enacted very painful sights were witnessed. 

40 



626 CURIOSITIES OF 

A spectator, writing in August, 1871, gives the following sad 
picture of what he saw on that occasion : " About twelve stripped 
and walked into the loch, performing their ablutions three times. 
Those who were not able to act for themselves were assisted, 
some of them being led willingly, and others by force, for there 
were cases of each kind. One young woman, strictly guarded, 
was an object of great pity. She raved in a distressed manner, 
repeating rehgious phrases, some of which were very earnest 
and pathetic. She prayed her guardians not to immerse her, 
saying that it was not a communion occasion, and asking if they 
could call this righteousness or faithfulness, or if 1 hey could com- 
pare the loch and its virtues to the right arm of Christ. These 
utterances were enough to move an}^ person hearing them." 

Loggan or Logging Stone. The most famous of the rock- 
ing stones in Great Britain. It is situated on a peninsula of 
granite near Land's End, in Cornwall. The stone is poised upon 
a pyramid of rock, very near the edge of the precipice, down 
which it seems to threaten, every instant, to fall. A very small 
force, or even a strong wind, will put this stone, though com- 
puted to weigh upward of eighty tons, into a state of vibra- 
tion, which continues for some minutes. Yet it is believed in 
the neighborhood that the stone has lost some of its elasticity 
of vibration since 1824. In that year it is said that a certain 
lieutenant in the royal navy commanding a cutter stationed off 
the south coast of Cornwall was told of an ancient proverb that 
no human power should ever succeed in overturning the Loggan 
stone. In a youthful spirit of bravado he determined to falsify 
the saying. With the aid of a body of picked men from his 
crew, he succeeded in dislodging the stone, but it luckily got 
caught in a crevice in the rocks immediately below the pyramidal 
rock on which it had been balanced, and so was saved from fall- 
ing down the sheer precipice into the sea. 

The news of the outrage was soon communicated throughout 
the district, and thence throughout all Cornwall. The indigna- 
tion of the whole country was aroused. Antiquaries who be- 
lieved the Loggan stone to have been balanced by the Druids, 
philosophers who held that it was produced by an eccentricity 
of natural formation, ignorant people who cared nothing about 
Druids or natural formations, but who liked to climb up and rock 
the stone whenever they passed near it, tribes of guides who 
lived by showing it, innkeepers in the neighborhood, to whom it 
brought customers by hundreds, tourists of every degree, who 
were on their way to see it, — all joined in one general clamor of 
execration against the overthrow er of the rock. A full report 
of the affair was forwarded to the Admiralty ; and the Admiralty 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 627 

acted vigorously for the public advantage, and mercifully spared 
the public purse. 

The lieutenant was oflScially informed that his commission was 
in danger unless he set up the Loggan stone again in its proper 
place. The materials for compassing this achievement were 
offered to him gratis from the dockyards, but he was left to his 
own resources to defray the expense of employing wprkmen to 
help him. Being by this time awakened to a proper sense of the 
mischief he had done, and to a tolerably strong conviction of 
the disagreeable position in which he was placed with the Admi- 
ralty, he addressed himself vigorously to the task of repairing 
his fault. Strong beams were planted about the Logman stone, 
chains were passed round it, pullej^s were rigged, and capstans 
manned. After a week's hard work and brave perseverance on 
the part of every one employed in the labor, the rock was pulled 
back into its former position, but not into its former perfection 
of balance ; it has never moved since as freely as it moved before. 

Longchamps. The annual cavalcade of Parisians to Long- 
champs, in the Bois de Boulogne, arose during the reign of Louis 
X.YL. from a visit which certain exalted ladies were in the habit 
of paying on Good Friday to the Longchamps nunnery, where 
the choral service in the chapel, conducted by young ladies se- 
lected for their good voices and carefully trained, was one of 
unusual attractiveness. By degrees the visitors brought their 
friends with them, then gentlemen; then the court came; then 
the press of visitors became so large that special choral services 
were held on the Saturday of Holy Week, on Easter Sunday, 
and on the two following days; until at length the cavalcade 
to Longchamps became as a yearly fair. Booths were erected, 
strolling players and dancing dogs congregated ; instead of re- 
turning to Paris immediately after the service, the fashion arose 
of stopping to lunch rustically in the open air. During the 
Ee volution the Longchamps nunnery vanished, but the Long- 
champs fair continued, and it flourishes to this day, no longer as 
a thing for booths and picnics, butt as a three days' drive to the 
Bois de Boulogne, in which the new spring fashions are worn 
for the first time, and everybody possessed of a barouche and 
horse airs them. 

Loreto, Holy House of. (It. Santa Casa di Loreto.) A 
famous pilgrimage shrine, reputed to be the veritable house 
wherein the Virgin Mary lived in Nazareth, which is now pre- 
served in the Chiesa della Santa Casa in Loreto, near Ancona, 
Italy. The church itself is a beautiful late-pointed building. 
The Santa Casa, which stands under the central dome, is forty- 



628 CURIOSITIES OF 

four feet long, twenty -nine and a half wide, and thirty-six high : 
it is encased in marble, with columns, and niches, and panels 
whereon Sansovino has sculptured scenes from the life of the 
Virgin. The interior is disposed as a chapel, and displays the 
rough masonry of the original structure. At the eastern end of 
the Casa stands an altar, and behind the altar is a niche en- 
shrining an image of the Virgin and Child, which is said to have 
been carved by St. Luke out of olive wood. It is now black 
with age and smoke. Precious crowns of gold are on each head, 
and the Madonna is covered from head to foot with a blaze of 
diamonds and jewelry. 

According to legend, it was the Empress Helena who discovered 
the Santa Casa, as well as the true cross (see Cross, Invention 
OF the), on her famous pilgrimage to the sacred places of Pales- 
tine. She identified the house at Nazareth partly by its narrow- 
ness and meagre appointments, but chiefly by a certain holy 
dread that it inspired. She caused a basilica to be built over it, 
which was visited and revered by countless thousands, until its 
destruction in the final conquest of Palestine by the Saracens. 
The Holy House, however, was not allowed to perish with its 
enclosing shrine. During the night of the 10th of May, 1291, it 
was miraculously severed from its foundations and borne through 
the air by angels to the hill of Tersatto, in lUyria. Here its 
divine origin was immediately recognized (1) by St. Luke's 
sculpture of the Virgin and Child, (2) by an altar at which St. 
Peter had said mass, (3) by various relics of the Holy Family 
and of more recent piety, (4) by the same nameless dread that 
had convinced the Empress Helena, and (5) by the fact that, 
unsupported by any foundation, it still stood firm and level on 
uneven ground. The identity of the house was finally estab- 
lished by a commission which went to Palestine and found by 
careful measurements that the original foundations tallied ex- 
actly with the dimensions of the structure at Tersatto. 

It is said that Tersatto attracted a large number of pilgrims, 
who were generous with their offerings and lavish with their 
devotions. Yet after three years the Virgin seems to have grown 
dissatisfied. On the night of the 10th of December, 1294, the 
angels again took up their precious burden, and deposited it in a 
wood not far from the present Loreto. The wonders and verifi- 
cations of Tersatto were repeated. But this site was even worse 
chosen than the last. The wealth of the pilgrims attracted rob- 
bers, who murdered and pillaged with impunity under the pro- 
tecting shadows of the wood. A third miraculous translation, a 
mile farther inland, made on a morning in August, 1295, resulted 
in a deadly feud between two brothers, joint owners of the land, 
and the sacred shrine, being in danger of defilement through 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 629 

fratricidal bloodshed, was a fourth time supernaturally borne in 
air and finally planted in the middle of a public road belonging 
to the commune of Eecanati, crushing down in its descent, as 
was discovered in 1751, a certain prickly bush by the roadside, 
and covering over some acorn-yhells, a snail-shell, and a dried 
nut. Almost immediately the authorities hastened to surround 
the Holy House with a brick wall for purposes of support, inas- 
much as it had no foundation, but the sacred walls would never 
adhere to the new ones, and broke asunder so far that a little 
child could pass between with a light in his hand, to show the 
people, when necessary, the truth of this separation. A number 
of porticos were soon erected around the house, in which the 
pilgrims might be sheltered from the weather, and above these 
porticos some rooms which served as a lodging to the priests 
were attached to the House. In the course of time the church 
which contains the Holy House under its dome was erected. 
It seems to have been begun about the year 1468 by Pope 
Paul II., and was greatly added to and beautified by Clement 
YII. Then followed the exquisite setting to the House itself, 
in which Bramante, Sansovino, and other famous artists were 



Hither have come pilgrims from all climes. Their knees have 
hollowed the marble base that surrounds the holy shrine. Their 
kisses have polished the bricks of the wall. The greatest saints of 
the Church, Popes, sovereigns, the noble and the good, have been 
among the throng. Fine ladies left here their diamonds, the 
rich made offerings of gold and precious stones, until a treasury 
of immense value was accumulated, which, dissipated in 1797 
when the French soldiers under Napoleon pillaged the shrine, 
has in our century grown again to wonderful proportions. Upon 
the room and the cases which contain these gifts Cardinal Anton 
Maria Gallo spent more than a quarter of a million dollars. The 
superb church with its beautiful bronzes, its altar-piece of mosaic, 
its rare marbles, and the growth of the entire city of Loreto, 
must also be accounted tributes to, the shrine. 

Clement YII. allowed the festival of the translation of the 
Holy House to be celebrated at Loreto on December 10. Urban 
YIII. extended the feast to all the churches of the neighboring 
marches in 1632. Innocent XII. approved a special oflSce for the 
festival in 1669 ; and in 1724 Benedict XIII. extended the cele- 
bration to the States of the Church. By a decree of August 31, 
1669, the congregation of Sacred Eites added, with Papal con- 
firmation, to the Eoman Martyrology the following notice on 
December 10: "At Loreto in the Marches the Translation of 
the House of St. Mary Mother of God, in which the Word was 
incarnate." 



630 CURIOSITIES OF 



I 



Louis, St. (Lat. Ludovicus ; It. IJuigi.) His festival is 
celebrated on the day of his death, August 25. 

St. Louis was born at Poissy in 1215, and was the son of Louis 
VIII. and Blanche of Castile. He succeeded his father as King 
of France in 1226. In 1247 he was taken very ill, and made a 
vow that if he recovered he would go to the Holy Land. He 
sailed for Egypt with an army of fifty thousand men. After 
many disasters, he was made prisoner, but was finally ransomed, 
and returned to France. In 1270 he embarked on another cru- 
sade, but fell a victim to the plague at Tunis, and died on Au- 
gust 25, 1270. Some of his relics were taken to Palermo, and 
the remainder were laid in the church of St. Denis at Paris. 
These were mostly destroyed during the Eevolution. A jaw-bone 
and one of the saint's shirts are exhibited at Notre-Dame. His 
attributes in art are a crown of thorns, his kingly crown, and 
his sword. St. Louis was canonized by Boniface YIII. in 1297. 

Lourdes, Our Lady of. (Fr. Notre-Dame de JLourdes.) A 
cave or grotto in Lourdes, a village in the south of France, 
which is now the most famous Catholic shrine in all Christen- 
dom. Its fame dates from the yea-r 1858, when the Virgin 
Mary is said to have appeared in this grotto to a young girl 
named Bernadette Soubirous. At that time Lourdes was a sim- 
ple mountain town, proud of a castle rich in historical memo- 
ries, and rejoicing in its fertilizing river Gave and its mountains, 
which, courtesying aside, allow it to peep up the lovely Pyre- 
nean valley. The world forgetting, it had been forgotten by the 
world. Now everything is changed. The streets are thronged 
with strangers from all parts of the world. At the great annual 
pilgrimage which occurs in September during the octave of the 
Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin as many as forty thousand 
people pour in on railway-cars, in carts and wagons, and even 
on foot. Hotels, shops, and booths are everywhere. A mag- 
nificent basilica dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes has risen 
over the holy grotto. The sleepy little town has opened its eyes 
to a new and wonderful life. 

And a girl of fourteen wrought this marvellous transforma- 
tion ! 

Bernadette Soubirous was a peasant, a native of the place, 
ignorant, pious, and by all accounts utterly guileless and simple- 
minded. Though too weakly to attend school, she was not in 
bad health. She was so attached to her beads that her play- 
fellows used to say, " She is no good save to say her rosaries" 
(Celle-la n'est bonne que pour dire ses chapelets"). 

Now, just outside of the city there was a cave or grotto, called 
La Grotte de Massabielle, — massabielle meaning, in the patois 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 631 

of the country, '' old rocks," — situated in an unfrequented 
locality on the banks of the Gave, one among many similar for- 
mations. 

It happened that on the 11th day of February, 1858, little 
Bernadette, with her sister and another girl, came hither to gather 
wood for burning. Her two companions had preceded her a few 
steps, and had partly filled their aprons with sticks gathered 
near the rocks, when, glancing backward, they saw Bernadette 
on her knees in the attitude of prayer, with her gaze fixed in- 
tently upon the interior of the cave. 

What had happened was this. While her companions were 
at work she had heard a sound as of a sudden gust of wind. She 
had looked around. All was still. The poplars and bushes on 
the banks of the river were motionless. Surely, she thought, 
she had been mistaken. But once again the sound arose, louder 
now, and unmistakably proceeding from the cave. Turning her 
head again quickly, her startled eyes encountered a vision that 
made her tremble in all her limbs and full half swooning to her 
knees. 

A woman of surpassing beauty stood at the entrance of the 
cave, surrounded by an aureole of inefiable brightness, not like 
sunlight, but rather like a bundle of rays, softened by a gentle 
shade, which irresistibly attracted the gaze, and on which the 
eyes reposed with ecstatic delight. 

Bernadette tried to make the sign of the cross, but failed. 
The vision smiled a smile of gracious kindliness, and, with a mild 
gesture, made the mystic passes herself Then the child was 
able to do the same, and even as she was uttering the final words 
of the Hail Mary the vision disappeared. 

Her two companions had seen nothing of the apparition. This 
she learned by questioning them. She kept her own counsel. 
With two other friends she returned to the cave next day. Not 
to them, either, had she mentioned her reasons for wishing to 
seek the cave of the Massabielle. Again the lady appeared. 
Again Bernadette was the only one who could see the apparition. 
But, though her companions saw nothing, they afterwards testi- 
fied that Bernadette's face and figure became suddenly trans- 
figured as she dropped on her knees before the grotto, and ac- 
quired a nobleness and grandeur that seemed almost superhuman. 
This time the apparition spoke, asking Bernadette to return to 
the cave for fifteen consecutive days. 

And now Bernadette thought she could safely consult her 
family. The report of what she had seen and heard spread 
with lightning-like rapidity through the city and surrounding 
country, and during the visits which the child afterwards made 
to the grotto she was followed by crowds of curious spectators. 



632 CURIOSITIES OF 

The time had come when these manifestations were to reach 
their climax. It was the feast of the Annunciation, the day 
when the angel Gabriel had communicated her destiny to the 
Virgin Mary. The village priest, sceptical and scornful, had 
asked Bernadette to exact a sign from the vision. " On the spot 
where she appears," he said, " there grows a wild rose-bush. Tell 
her to cause the roses to bloom at once, as if it were spring. If 
before your eyes and the eyes of all present that prodigy occurs, 
you may promise her, on my part, that a handsome chapel shall 
be built on the spot." 

Thousands of people, who had poured in from the neighboring 
villages, accompanied Bernadette to the cavern. Of course they 
saw nothing. To their eyes the consecrated cave was but a com- 
mon cavern, the holy niche wherein the vision appeared only a 
plain, ivy-grown rock. One thing, however, they did see, and 
that was the little maiden so lost in ecstasy at what she saw 
that she seemed not to feel the flame of a burning candle. 
When she rose she repeated the words she had heard from the 
vision, which were, in brief, that the Yirgin wished the people to 
be happy, and bade them eat the herb of that place and wash in 
the water. When Bernadette had besought her for her name, 
she had answered, " I am the Immaculate Conception." Straight- 
way water flowed from the cave, and, although this was not the 
sign which the incredulous priest had told the child to require as 
the condition of his belief, it is the water and the words that 
have made the Lourdes of to-day. 

But Lourdes was not made without considerable opposition, 
both from the ecclesiastical and from the civil authorities. At 
first they did all they could to check popular manifestations, 
fearing that superstitious excesses might be fatal to the interests 
of religion, as well as dangerous to the public peace. The pre- 
fect of police, regarding Bernadette as insane, ordered her to 
be confined in a madhouse ; this, however, was avoided by her 
friends, who placed her under conventual guardianship. The 
grotto was enclosed with a strong palisade concealing the spring, 
and people were warned away by a notice to commit no tres- 
pass. Yotive offerings, such as bouquets of natural or artificial 
flowers, pieces of money of all sorts and in great quantities, and 
wax tapers, were removed. 

Finally the story of the miraculous apparitions reached the 
ears of I^apoleon III., who forthwith sent an imperial order re- 
storing Bernadette to liberty and commanding the prefect to allow 
free access to the grotto, and not to obstruct the people in the 
manifestations of their religious faith. 

Since that time manifestations have gone on increasing, and 
that in most substantial forms. A handsome new bridge leads 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 633 

to the scene of the visions. The surrounding hills are crowned 
or dotted with buildings, clerical and lay, of all dimensions, — 
convents, hospitals, calvaries, crosses, chapels, shrines. 

A basilica of hewn stone crowns the hill above the grotto. 

Beneath the church is a spacious crypt, known as the Chapel 
of the Eosary, redolent of incense, and hung with ruby-colored 
lamps and banners invoking Notre-Dame de Lourdes to pray for 
Eome and France. 

The grotto itself, small and enclosed with an iron palisade, is 
all but filled with burning candles on iron stands, renewed as 
they burn out. 

As one faces the grotto the natural niche in which the vision 
of the Virgin appeared to Bernadette is above and to the right. 
In it has been placed a statue of the Virgin as Bernadette de- 
scribed her, and over its head the words " I am the Immaculate 
Conception." Beneath this statue and again in a great mass at 
the grotto's left are hung the implements of illness which have 
been discarded by the people who have been miraculously cured 
at the shrine. There are five thousand crutches ; there are iron 
frames for twisted limbs ; there are parts of invalids' chairs ; 
there are trusses. Some of them are new, others smoked by 
the candles or worn by the weather give mute testimony of the 
Virgin's goodness to pilgrims of years gone by. 

The place where Bernadette knelt on the 11th of February, 
1858, is marked by a slab with due inscription, and is therefore 
a favorite praying station. 

The water that sprang so suddenly out of the rock no longer 
trickles down the mossy bank, for the great rush of pilgrims and 
the absolute impossibility of restraining their impatience and 
putting a curb upon their rapture, which led them into such 
indiscretions as throwing themselves headlong into the waters, 
years a^o rendered primitive arrangements impossible. The 
waters from the grotto are now received in a reservoir covered 
with steel plate, and only through perforated holes in the cover- 
ings can the pilgrims see them. From this reservoir the water 
is carried in pipes some thirty yards to the left, where a score 
of spigots are running night and day. Here the pilgrims drink, 
and lave their travel-stained foreheads. Through other conduits, 
and perhaps from the overflow of the spigots and. the laving 
operations, the water is carried to the baths, which are situated 
twenty yards farther to the left. 

The baths, improperly called piscines, are small private cabi- 
nets or closets like those found in ordinary pubhc bath estab- 
lishments. The bathing and its results are consequently un- 
seen, except by the attendants. Miraculous and sudden cures 
are occasionally announced ; but Notre-Dame de Lourdes has a 



634 CURIOSITIES OF 

debtor as well as a creditor account. The waters of her phe- 
nomenal spring can kill as well as cure. Not very long ago, an 
ailing and elderly Breton gentleman, yielding to the urgency of 
religious advisers, was plunged into the frigid bath, and died sud- 
denly and unexpectedly on the spot. 

At all points whence the water issues it is allowed to be taken 
gratuitously ; but there is for sale a large choice of flasks and 
cans for carrying away the holy water, of various sizes, plain, 
and engraved with views of the shrine. 

It may perhaps be well to say here that though the present 
Pope has sent his papal benediction to the shrine, and though 
very many cardinals visit it yearly, there are many princes of the 
Church who dispute the authenticity of the vision and the con- 
versations and occurrences which Bernadette reported. As a 
general thing, the pilgrimages to Lourdes are encouraged, but 
implicit belief in the apparition and in the miraculous origin 
of the fountain is not enforced as an article of faith. 

No doubts, however, assail the minds of the devotees who 
come here day after day or join in the great September pilgrim- 
age. The French government makes special arrangements on 
the latter occasion for the transportation of the sick in what are 
known as the White train and the Blue train. Eeduced rates are 
offered to those whose priests and doctors certify that they are 
fit subjects for the miraculous powers of the Yirgin Mary. Only 
the sick and their friends can buy railroad-tickets by these trains. 
Therefore only those whose appeals to human power have been 
wholly useless are permitted to ride on them. 

To the Gare St.-Lazare and the Gare de Lyon in Paris and to 
the other stations along the road, when these trains are booked 
to start, comes an awful procession of the afiiicted, some limping 
on canes, some hobbling on crutches, some writhing with pain 
on carefully swung litters lifted by the tender hands of relatives 
or priests. In each car is a Sister trained to nurse,, binding with 
gentle fingers horrid sores, and cleansing from the floors and 
seats the disgusting evidences of hopeless sickness with her ever- 
present sponge and basin. 

Even the ordinary express, on which the charges are high, is 
not without its quota of painful sights and sounds. Here is a 
description given by a journalist, Edward Marshall, who attended 
the pilgrimage of 1896 for the New York Journal : 

"We left Paris at seven-fifty p.m., and reached Lourdes at 
about three on the following afternoon. Nearly every carriage 
in the train had its invalid or invalids, and many of the passen- 
gers were pilgrims of one sort or another. Many, whose bodies 
were whole, evidently intended to ask the Virgin to ease some 
sorrow. During the hour of waiting at Toulouse my neighbors 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 635 

at breakfast were a couple of very respectable French people, 
who told me frankly that they were on their way to Lourdes to 
beg the Virgin to grant a baby to them. Hundreds of childless 
couples beg this boon of the Virgin every year. 

" The journey was rendered weird and strange by the devotional 
chants which rang solemnly out from a hundred open car-win- 
dows whenever we stopped at a station, and whenever we slowed 
enough so that the sound of the singing was not drowned by the 
roar of the train itself. 

" At four o'clock the first division of the White train arrived. 
If the scene at the station when our train gave up its passengers 
was startling, the scene when the cars of the White train vomited 
forth their cargo of unfortunates was not less than awful. These 
were the poorer pilgrims, — those who took advantage of the re- 
duced railroad fares of the national pilgrimage. Most of them 
came in the third-class carriages. Exhausted by the long journey, 
they looked even more dreadful in their curiosities of misery than 
they had looked at the station in Paris before they embarked. I 
am told that seven unhappy creatures died on the train, and it is 
true, I know, that one corpse was left lying on the seat of one 
of the third-class carriages when it was switched away from the 
station platform. 

"The hospitallers were out in force to meet this train, and 
they did their work wonderfully well. There were litters and 
stretchers and wheeled beds, and chairs enough for the whole 
vast number of helpless ones. Sisters of Mercy and nuns were 
everywhere with basins and sponges. At least a hundred priests 
passed in and out through the throng, praying, comforting, 
exhorting the sufferers to have faith, to believe, to believe, to 
believe. 

"At night — and each night during my stay — there were the 
superb processions. Starting from in front of the Basilica, whose 
towering outlines were vividly marked against the darkness by 
more than five thousand electric lights, not less than twenty 
thousand pilgrims marched in t\yo widely separated lines^ each 
one bearing a blessed candle shaded with paper on which the 
image of the Virgin was printed, up a broad path, through the 
Basilica Park to where a towering cross of fire flamed its holy 
signal in the night, and back again to the great stone steps of 
the Eosary Chapel, where, in the glow of innumerable vestas, 
eloquent addresses were made by French and foreign priests and 
a terrific out-door devotional service was held. 

" At intervals in this long line of pilgrims were groups of 
priests and choristers, who each ten minutes started the 'Ave 
Maria,' in which the pilgrims joined with voices trembling but 
wonderfully tuneful. No effort was made to have the whole 



636 CVRIOSITIES OF 

procession chant in unison, so there was never a moment when 
from half a dozen points in the long, blazing line the solemn! 
singing did not come, — now near, now distant, — ' Ave Maria, Avej 
Maria.' 

" Up towards the beginning of the line were the bedridden, ! 
wheeled slowly in all manner of nondescript conveyances. 
Everywhere, scattered along the lines, were the lame, the halt, 
and the blind, some of them assisted by sturdier pilgrims, others 
hobbling along on crutches, with canes, in iron frames. The 
night processions at Lourdes are spectacles such as are not to be 
seen elsewhere in the whole world. 

"But of course the interest centres most about the grotto. 
There was never a moment during my eleven days in Lourdes 
when there were not many people at the grotto. In the day the 
crowds of course were vast, and midnight came before the mass 
of the pilgrims had withdrawn to go to the hospital, — a truly 
dreadful place, without modern sanitary appliances ; to the 
shelter where the very poorest can sleep on stone benches and 
the floor ; to the hotels. The night after the arrival of the White 
train, the horrible coughing of a consumptive who was my room- 
mate made sleep impossible at my hotel, and at two o'clock I 
returned to the grotto. 

"The plaza was comparatively deserted. From the grotto 
came the soft glow of its thousand candles, which reaching 
upward made the white-robed statue of the Virgin stand out 
from the black niche of rock with a living distinctness which 
was startling. Gathered about, half in and half without the 
soft radiance of the vestas, were a score of devout sufferers. The 
priests were gone. The Sisters were gone. These mute, adoring 
pilgrims were alone in the night with their Virgin. For the 
first time the silence made the musical murmur of the near-by 
river Gave audible. Aside from that there was no sound save 
the low whisperings of prayer, the faintest rustling of the tree- 
leaves, and the occasional clinking of a metal rosary's beads. 
Five pilgrims were in their litters, seven were in invalid-chairs, 
three or four who were able to walk about, to kneel, and to 
wander off sometimes under the trees to the right, were there. 
The silent devotion of these night worshippers keeping their 
vigil in the darkness before the shrine was not the least impres- 
sive episode of Lourdes." {New York Journal^ October 18, 1896.) 

Low or White Sunday. The first Sunday after Easter. 
The author of " Christian Sodality," a collection of discourses, 
1652, says, " This day is called White or Low Sunday because in 
the primitive Church those neophytes that on Easter Eve were 
baptized and clad in white garments did to-day put them off, 



I 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 637 

with this admonition, that they were to keep within them a per- 
petual candor of spirit, signified by the Agnus Dei hung about 
their necks, which, falling down upon their breasts, put them in 
mind what innocent lambs they must be, now that of sinful, 
high, and haughty men they were by baptism made low, and 
little children of Almighty God, such as ought to retain in their 
manners and lives the Paschal feasts which they had accom- 
plished." 

This is ingenious, but it is more likely that the day was called 
Low Sunday by contrast to its predecessor Easter, which is the 
highest or greatest Sunday in the year. The name White or 
Whit Sunday is now monopolized by Pentecost. 

Seymour in his " Survey of London" (1734, book iv. p. 100) 
tells us that the aldermen used to meet the lord mayor and 
sheriffs at St. Paul's in their scarlet gowns, furred, without their 
cloaks, to hear the sermon. 

Lucy, St., patron saint of Syracuse, of the laboring poor, 
and against diseases of the eye. Her festival is celebrated on 
December 13, the reputed anniversary of her martyrdom, a.d. 
304. Until the Eeformation the day was kept in England as a 
holiday of the second rank, in which no work but tillage and the 
like was allowed. Born in Syracuse in the third century, St. 
Lucy was betrothed to a pagan youth against her will. Her 
mother, Eutychia, was aflSicted with a grievous malady, and was 
persuaded by St. Lucy to visit the shrine of St. Agatha, to pray 
that she might be healed. While at the shrine St. Lucy beheld 
a vision of St. Agatha, who assured her of her mother's recovery. 
Eutychia was cured, and in joy at her recovery gave her consent 
to St. Lucy's dedicating herself to a religious life and to the cure 
of the poor. This so enraged St. Lucy's lover that he denounced 
her as a Christian. Pascasius, the governor before whom she was 
taken, ordered her to sacrifice to the idols, and upon her refusal 
he commanded her to be dragged away to a house of prostitution. 
It was found, however, impossible to move her. Oxen, ropes, 
and the spells of magicians were all in vain. Then a fire was 
kindled, but this harmed her not. Finally a soldier pierced her 
neck with a poniard, and she died. A later legend, probably 
originating in the endeavor of painters to express her name — 
Lucy, "light" — by placing an eye near her, relates that, in order 
to discourage the suit of a youth who was haunted by the beauty 
of her eyes, she plucked them out and sent them to him on a 
dish. This cured the youth, and converted him to Christianity. 
St. Lucy's sight was restored by a miracle. Her body, it is said, 
remained at Syracuse for many j^ears, but was at length trans- 
lated into Italy and thence to Metz, where it is exposed to public 



638 CURIOSITIES OF 

veneration in a rich chapel of St. Vincent's Church. A portion 
of her relics was carried to Constantinople, and brought thence 
to Venice. Her attributes in art are a hght and a poniard. She 
is often represented with the balls of her eyes laid in a dish, and 
sometimes light proceeds from a wound in her neck. Again she 
is represented as being pulled by men and oxen without effect. 

Ludi Romani or Circenses. Ancient Eoman games in honor 
of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, celebrated from the 4th to the 
19th of September. 

The Circensian games (Ludi Circenses), according to legends, 
were instituted by Eomulus in order to attract the Sabine popu- 
lation to Eome for the purpose of furnishing the Eomans with 
wives. These were first called Consuales, in honor of the god 
Consus. After the construction of the Circus Maximus the 
games were called indiscriminately Circenses, Eomani, or Magni. 

The games began with a grand procession, in which all those 
who were about to exhibit in the Circus, as well as persons of 
distinction, bore a part. 

The Circus Maximus was in the valley south of the Palatine, 
and was nearly half a mile long. 

The horse-races, either in two-horse — bigce — or four-horse 
chariots, — quadrigce, — were the earliest form of games; but 
others were added from time to time, — wrestling, boxing, foot- 
races, evolutions of trained companies of horsemen, — the Ludus 
Trojce, described in the fifth book of Virgil's "^neid," was one 
of these, — animal-hunts, and, in the latter part of the republic, 
gladiatorial combats. For all of these, except the races, the 
form of the Circus was ill suited, and in the course of time the 
amphitheatre was devised, which was precisely adapted to these 
purposes. 

Originally the games occupied a single daj^, and often not the 
whole of that ; by degrees they were lengthened, until, in the 
time of the Empire, they lasted a week or more, and scenic 
games, ludi scenici, — that is. theatrical performances, — were added 
to those in the Circus. The Circensian games regularly came 
last. Of the sixteen days of the Ludi Eomani only the last five 
were in the Circus. 

Ludmilla, St., patron saint of Bohemia. Her festival is 
celebrated on September 16. 

St. Ludmilla was Queen of Bohemia, and was converted to 
Christianity by St. Adalbert. She converted her grandson, after- 
wards St. Wenceslaus. This aroused the anger of his mother 
and his brother Boleslaus, and a civil war broke out between 
the Christian and pagan parties in Bohemia. Ludmilla was 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 639 

strangled by hired assassins as she was praying in her oratory. 
Wenceslaus was slain by his brother. Ludmilla was the first 
martyr saint of Boliemia. Her martyrdom took place about the 
year 920. Her remains were translated to Prague by St. Wen- 
ceslaus, and are preserved in St. George's Church. The head, 
separate, in a silver shrine, is now in the cathedral. 

Luke, St., patron saint of painters. His festival is celebrated 
on October 18. Beyond what can be gathered in the New Testa- 
ment, little is known of St. Luke. He was probably not con- 
verted until after the ascension of Christ. He became a devoted 
disciple of St. Paul, and was with him until his death. That he 
was a physician is inferred from the fact that Paul speaks of 
him as " Luke, the beloved physician ;" but the general belief that 
he was an artist rests on Greek traditions, which can be traced 
back only to the tenth century. A picture of the Yirgin found 
in the Catacombs and inscribed as painted by Lucais regarded as 
a confirmation of the Greek legends. Legends also relate that 
he carried with him pictures of the Saviour and the Yirgin 
painted by himself, by means of which he made many converts. 
He is often represented in the act of painting the Virgin. His 
attributes in art are the ox, the emblem of sacrifice, because 
Luke wrote of the priesthood of the Saviour, a book, signifying 
his writings, and a portrait of the Yirgin placed in his hand. 
In the church of San Domenico and San Sisto at Eome is pre- 
served a picture of the Yirgin by Luke by means of which, it is 
related, St. Gregory the Great dispelled a pestilence at Eome. 
Another picture in the Ara Cceli claims to be the one which was 
thus honored. Accounts differ as regards the manner of St. 
Luke's death: according to some, he died peacefully; according 
to others, he was crucified with St. Andrew at Patrse. The 
bones of St. Luke are said to have been translated from Patrse 
in 357 to the church of the Apostles at Constantinople, together 
with those of St. Andrew and St. Timothy. On the occasion of 
this translation some distribution was made of the relics of St. 
Luke. St. Gaudentius procured" a portion for his church at 
Brescia; St. Paulinus got a portion for St. Felix's Church at 
Nola, and enshrined a part in a church which he built at Fondi. 
When the church of the Apostles at Constantinople was re- 
paired by order of Justinian, it is said that three coffins, bearing 
the bodies of St. Luke, St. Andrew, and St. Timothy, were found. 
Baronius mentions that the head of St. Luke was brought by 
St. Gregory to Eome and laid in the church of St. Andrew. 
Some of his relics are shown in the Grecian monastery on Mount 
Athos. 

The most famous of the Madonnas ascribed to St. Luke is pre- 



640 CURIOSITIES OF 

served at the Monte della Guardia, just outside Bologna, in Italy. 
According to tradition, this picture was painted at Jerusalem in 
the year 34. In due time it found its way to the church of 
St. Sophia, in Constantinople. In the twelfth century a pilgrim 
named Eutemio, gazing at the picture, heard a voice within 
crying, " Take the holy picture to the Monte della Guardia !" 
He mentioned the matter to the custodians, and they cheer- 
fully agreed that he should heed the heavenly monitor. So he 
travelled all over Europe searching for the Monte della Guardia. 
Finally at Eome an alliterative Senator named Pascipovero Pas- 
cipoveri, a Bolognese by birth, informed him that the mount in 
question was just outside of his native city. On the top of the 
mount was a hermitage presided over by two ladies, Azzolina 
and Beatrice, who were duly appointed guardians of the picture 
on May 8, 1160. The faithful flocked to the new shrine. Many 
cures were wrought among them. Then some evil-minded Vene- 
tians stole the picture one night, and put to sea with all speed ; 
but the sacrilegious rascals gained nothing by this crime, for 
before their ship was out of sight of land their prize had disap- 
peared and was safe back in its chosen abode. 

Well was it for Bologna that the abduction was frustrated. 
An earthquake, a pestilence, an inundation, a disastrous war, 
these are a few of the catastrophes which the Madonna di San 
Luca warded off. The grateful citizens in the eighteenth century 
built a new and grander minster on the old site. It was com- 
pleted March 25, 1765. 

For nearly six days every year — that is, from the evening of 
the Saturday before the Feast of the Ascension to the night of 
Holy Thursday itself — the Bolognese keep high holiday, not so 
much in celebration of that religious festival as to manifest their 
devotion to the picture. This is in obedience to a senatorial 
deci;ee dating as far back as 1435. 

On the Saturday named a priest appears at the sanctuary and 
formally demands the delivery of the painting, that it may be 
carried in solemn procession along the grand arcade, nearly three 
miles in length, stretching from the sanctuary to the Saragozza 
gate, its arrival there being hailed with shouts of joy from citi- 
zens arrayed in their best attire and country-people in holiday 
dress and holiday spirits, intent upon escorting the Madonna 
to the cathedral and seeing her safely lodged therein. There 
she stays, to feast adoring eyes, until sunset on Ascension Eve. 
Then, placed on a litter as fine as velvet, precious cloths, em- 
broidery, and gilding can make it, she is borne through the 
streets to the church of San Petronio, carried through the 
church, and set down on the steps in front of it. All Bologna's 
bells ring out, the priests raise their voices in a hymn of praise, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 641 

every bead in the thickly packed square is bowed, ever}^ knee 
bent, as the Madonna is moved gently backward and forward and 
from side to side, so that none in the vast assemblage may depart 
unblessed. The same ceremony is repeated at the Meloncello 
bridge the next day, as the Madonna slowly wends her way back 
to the sanctuary, entering the crowded fane, all ablaze with 
light, to the music of pealing bells, swelling organ, and well- 
attuned voices, and Bologna's annual " festa" is over. 

In Charlton, England, a great fair was formerly held on St. 
Luke's Day. One of its quaint features was an elaborate display 
of horns, the booths not only being decorated with them, but 
most of the articles offered for sale having representations of 
this emblem. For a long time antiquaries were much divided as 
to what connection there could be between horns and Charlton 
Fair, and many conjectures were started without any satisfactory 
result. At last, however, light was thrown on this much-dis- 
puted question by an antiquary who pointed out that a horned 
ox is the old mediaeval symbol of St. Luke, the patron of the 
fair. In support of this explanation it was added that, although 
most of the painted glass in Charlton Church was destroyed in 
the troublous times of the reign of Charles I., yet fragments 
remained of St. Luke's ox " with wings on its back and goodly 
horns on his head." As an additional illustration on this point, 
we may quote the following extract from Aubrey's " Eemains 
of Gentilisme and Judaisme :" " At Stoke-Yerdon, in the parish 
of Broad Chalke, Wilts, was a chapel dedicated to St. Luke, who 
is the patron saint of the horn beasts and those that have to do 
with them ; wherefore the keepers and foresters of the 'New For- 
est come hither at St. Luke's tide with their offerings to St. 
Luke, that they might be fortunate in their game, the deer, and 
other cattle." Many of those, also, who visited Charlton Fair 
wore a pair of horns on their heads, and the men were attired 
in women's clothes, — a mode of masquerading thus described by 
a writer of the last century : " I remember being there upon 
Horn fair day ; I was dressed in my landlady's best gown and 
other women's attire." Eeferring to St. Luke's Day, Drake tells 
us in his " Eboracum" that a fair was annually kept up at York 
for all sorts of small wares, and was popularly known as " Dish 
fair," from the large quantity of wooden dishes exposed for sale. 

It was also characterized by an old custom of " bearing a 
wooden ladle in a sling on two stangs about it, carried by four 
sturdy laborers ; this being, no doubt, in ridicule of the meanness 
of the wares brought to the fair." 

Luke the Styrites, usually known as St. Luke, though he» 
appears in the Greek hagiologies as only o(7co(;, or "blessed," not 

41 



642 CURIOSITIES OF 

aytoq, the patron of the famous church and monastery of St. Luke 
at Styris, near Delphi, in Greece. His festival is kept on Feb- 
ruary 7, the anniversary of his death. Of Cretan origin, he w^as 
born at Costorum, in Phocis, about 890. At eighteen years of 
age he retired to Mount lonnitza, where he received the monastic 
habit from two monks passing there on their way to Rome. 
After many wanderings, he finally reached Styris, where he es- 
tablished himself in a cell and died about 945. The people from 
all the surrounding country flocked to his death-bed through a 
blinding snow-storm that made the roads well-nigh impassable. 
By his direction, his body was buried on the spot, and attracted 
a number of monks, who built cells here and finally formed 
themselves into a community. Luke had prophesied that his 
country should be delivered from the Saracens by an Emperor 
named Romanus. When in 961 Crete was reunited to the Em- 
pire under Romanus II., that Emperor, in acknowledgment, built 
this convent and church and dedicated them to the friendly 
prophet. The reputed tomb of Luke is in one of the side-aisles 
of the church. It is empty. Local tradition assigns the re- 
moval of the relics to the Franks after the Latin conquest of 
Constantinople. Some relics, however, purporting to be those 
of the hermit are preserved at Mount Athos. 

Lupercalia. An ancient Roman festival, celebrated on the 
15th of February. This was one of the most ancient of Roman 
festivals, and was celebrated in honor of Lupercus, the god of 
fertility. The day was called dies februatus, or " day of expia- 
tion." 

The traditions of this festival, its localities, and its rude, strange 
rites, belong to the most primitive times, when Rome was a half- 
savage community of shepherds. The Lupercal — " wolf's grotto'* 
— was a cave on the western slope of the Palatine Hill, and close 
by it was the ficus ruminalis, or fig-tree under which the twin 
infants Romulus and Remus had been stranded by the Tiber, 
when they were found and nursed by the wolf which had its 
home in the cave. The Luperci, who celebrated this festival 
yearly, were young men of noble birth, who formed two brother- 
hoods, the Fabian and Quintilian Luperci, belonging respectively 
to the Sabine and Latin parts of the city. A third brotherhood, 
the Julian, was afterwards added in honor of Julius Caesar. The 
number of the Luperci is uncertain. The festival commenced 
with the sacrifice of goats and a young dog at the Lupercal. 
Then two young men were brought in and their foreheads 
touched with the bloody knife ; another of the brotherhood 
wiped the blood away with wool dipped in milk, upon which the 
young men broke into a laugh. Then followed the sacrificial 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 643 

banquet of the brotherhood, after which the Luperci, clothed in 
nothing but pieces of the hides of the slaughtered goats, and 
holding in their hands thongs cut from the same hides, ran up 
and down through the city, striking everybody that they met. 
Women would come forth voluntarily to be struck, since they 
believed that the ceremony rendered them fruitful and procured 
them an easy delivery. It was as leader of the Luperci Julii, a 
month before Caesar's assassination and the very year of the 
establishment of this brotherhood, that Mark Antony, 

On the Lupercal, . . 

Thrice did ofl'er him a l^ingly crown. 

The act of running about with thongs of goat-skin was a 
symbolic purification of the land, and that of touching persons 
a purification of them. 

The festival of Lupercalia, though it necessarily lost its origi- 
nal import at the time when the Romans were no longer a 
nation of shepherds, was yet always observed in commemoration 
of the founders of the city. The festival kept its ground even 
after the triumph of Christianity, and was the last of the pagan 
festivals to be given up. 



M. 

Macaire, St. (Lat. Macarius.) There were two saints of 
this name, known respectively as the older (300-390) and the 
younger (335-395). Both are commemorated together by the 
Greeks on January 19, but the Latins commemorate the elder on 
January 15 and the younger on January 2. The first was born 
in Upper Egypt, the second at Alexandria. Both were hermits 
who practised great austerities and built themselves huts in 
deserted places. After the year 375, when both were exiled 
from Alexandria by the Arian patriarch, they lived much to- 
gether. In art the younger is represented with wallets of sand 
on his shoulders, and sometimes with a hyena and its young. 
The sand is a reference to the fact that he used to walk over the 
hot desert bowed down under this burden in order to conquer 
the flesh. The other symbol refers to a legend that a hyena 
once brought her young one and laid it at the feet of the her- 
mit. He looked at the animal and saw it was blind, therefore 
he pitied the poor whelp and prayed to God ; then he touched 
its eyes and they were opened. ]N'ext day the hyena brought to 
him a sheepskin and laid it at his feet. The relics of this St. 
Macaire are preserved in the cathedral of St. Bavon in Ghent. 
Here only once in a century takes place a great procession in 



644 CURIOSITIES OF 

honor of St. Macaire the younger. The Uist time it was cele- 
brated was May 19, 1867, when the intercession of the saint was 
invoked to protect Belgium from the cholera, the typhus fever, 
and the cattle disease, which had visited it in 1866. The Cardinal 
of Malines, all the bishops of Belgium, the Nuncio, and Bishop 
Mermillod of Geneva, who preached the Jubilee, assisted. The 
city was crowded with over one hundred thousand visitors from 
all parts, even from France, Germany, England, and America. 
On this occasion the cathedral of St. Bavoii was decorated with 
flowers, flags, and ribbons. The solid silver shrine of St. Macaire, 
a present from the city of Mons two hundred years ago, was 
placed upon a temporary altar erected in the middle of the 
transept, surrounded by thousands of lights. A canopy of ever- 
greens and flowers overshadowed it. The procession took place 
at five o'clock in the afternoon. Its most notable feature was 
an historical group accurately reproducing the courts of the 
King of France and the Comte de Flandre, with their soldiers, 
archers, chaplains, standard-bearers, and pages, as they assisted 
at the translation of the relics of St. Macaire in 1067. 

Maio, or Calendi Maggio, a May -Day festival still surviving 
in rustic Italy, especiallj' in Tuscany and the Eoman provinces, 
as a relic of the old Eoman custom of celebrating the kalends 
of May. Songs called maggiolate are composed, or at least 
sung, by the peasantry on this occasion, trees are festooned with 
ribbons and garlands and windows decorated with branches, the 
adornments being known as the Maio. In the heyday of Flor- 
entine glory these festivals were celebrated in the city, and dig- 
nified by songs, dances, and feastings, which lasted several days ; 
as, for instance, the grand banquet of the Ibt of May given in 
the Portinari palace, where Dante fell in love with Beatrice. 
Evidence of the former prevalence of these festivals exists in 
the numerous maggiolate composed by different authors, and 
among others by the magnificent Lorenzo dei Medici, whose 
poems are not at all worse than those of a common citizen. One 
of his songs commences thus : 

Ben venga Maggio 
El gonfalon salvaggio : 

and in another he thus alludes to these festivities : 

Se tu V appicare un maggio 
A qualcuna che tu ami. 

One of the latest celebrations of this festival in Florence was 
in 1612, when a Maio was planted and sung before the Pitti 
palace in honor of the Archduchess of Austria. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 645 

In Rome it was customary for children on the Ist of May 
to place upon a chair before the house door a puppet of the 
Madonna, crowned with a garland. Every passenger was then 
applied to for a donation in the following verse, which was sung 
by the little beggars : 

Belli, belli giovanotti, 
Che mangiate pasticiotti 
E bevete del buon vino, 
Un quattrin' sulP altarino. 

This custom suggests a curious parallel in the past. On the 
kalends of May the foundation festival of the altars of the lares 
prcestites was celebrated in all the houses of ancient Rome. The 
lararium, bearing the small household gods, was decked on this 
occasion with fresh garlands of flowers and foliage, and modern 
antiquarians believe that the custom of the Roman children is a 
relic of the ancient festival. 

Mallard Night. The 14th of January was formerly cele- 
brated under this name at All Souls College, Oxford, in commem- 
oration of the discovery of a very large mallard or drake in a 
drain when digging for the foundation of the college ; and though 
this observance no longer exists, yet on one of the college " gau- 
dies" there is sung in memory of the occurrence a very old song 
called " The swapping, swapping mallard," which begins, — 

Griffin, bustard, turkey, capon. 
Let other hungry mortals gape on, 
And on the bones their stomach fall hard, 
But let All Souls' men have their mallard. 

Malo, or Maclou, St., patron of the city of St. Malo, in France. 
His festival is celebrated on the anniversary of his death, No- 
vember 15 (a.d. 627). Born in Wales, he was brought up by St. 
Brendan at the latter's monastery ^t Aleth, in Brittany, the place 
now known as St. Malo. His virtues exciting the jealousy of 
the other monks, St. Brendan took St. Malo with him in search 
of some solitary islet where they might serve God unmolested. 
But an angel bade them return, and Malo eventually became 
Bishop of Aleth. He died at Archambray, where his relics re- 
mained until the seventh century. A young native of Aleth 
taking refuge with the sacristan of Archambray plotted to be- 
tray the latter and steal the relics. Encouraged by the Bishop 
of Aleth and fortified by the sacraments of confession and com- 
munion, the youth packed up the body when his host's back was 
turned, and ran away with it to Aleth. Here the relics were 



646 



CURIOSITIES OF 



received with great pomp by bishop, clergy, and people. On 
portion was given to the monastery of the Isle of Aron, the 
other was kept in the cathedral. In 975 they were taken to 
Paris. They were lost during the Eevolution. The onl}^ relic 
that remains is a shoulder-bone at St. Maclou-de-Moiselles, near 
Yersailles. 



Mannekin of Brussels. A curious little bronze figure in 
the Eue de I'Etuve, Brussels, representing a naked boy, which has 
attained notoriety from its peculiar impropriety of attitude. It 
stands in a niche carved into the wall, and water passes through 
it to a basin beneath. On great festival days the water is turned 
off and wine is substituted. The origin of this sculptural jest is 
unknown, but it is attributed to Duquesnoy. The citizens of 
Brussels take great pride in this image, call it "the oldest bur- 
gess in Brussels," and dress it up on fete-days and, detaching it 
from its pedestal, carry it around in all street processions. Man- 
nekin enjoys a yearly income of two hundred francs, bequeathed 
to him many years ago by an old maid of Brussels, which serves 
to keep up his very varied wardrobe: he is by turns an old 
nobleman, a civic guard, a burgess, etc. He possesses eight 
different costumes in all, the richest having been presented to 
him by Louis XY., together with the cross of St. Louis. During 
the Eevolution he mounted the red cap of liberty. Napoleon 
conferred on him a chamberlain's key. At present he is always 
on the side of the dominant party. 

March. From Mars, the god of war, and the reputed father 
of Eomulus, who is traditionally believed to have compiled the 
first calendar and to have made March the first month in the 
year. With the 25th day of this month, the approximate date 







March. Bbeaking up Soil— Digging— Sowing — Harrowing. 

of the vernal equinox, the legal year began with many Christian 
nations until a quite recent period. It still does so with the 
Jews. 

The Anglo-Saxons called the month Lenctenmonath, or Length 
Month, in reference to the rapid lengthening of the day at this 
period of the year. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 647 

March 25 in the Greek calendar (which is April 6 in ours) is 
celebrated with great enthusiasm by the Greeks as their Indepen- 
dence Day. It commemorates the raising of the standard of the 
Cross against the Crescent on April 6, 1821 (N. S.), beginning 
the war against the Turks which resulted in the independence 
of Greece. 

Marches, Riding the. A ceremony not unlike the English 
custom of beating the bounds (see Bounds) which still survives 
in some Scottish towns. The object is to ride the marches or 
commons of the town's land in order to protect them from the 
encroachments or thieving propensities of neighboring lairds. 
The Selkirk Common-Eiding is the most famous of these sur- 
vivals. On the eve of the last Friday of May, Old Style, the 
senior burgh officer, attended by a piper and a drummer, marches 
through the town and announces to the lieges that on the morrow 
the historic ceremonies will be observed. At four o'clock next 
morning the air is pierced with the music of fife and drum as a 
summons to the participants. A procession is then formed, con- 
sisting of mounted constables, the brass band, the Bailies and 
members of the Town-Council, the Hammermen with the flag, 
the Merchant Company, Standard-Bearer carrying the flag of the 
town. Provost, Town-Clerk, Burleymen, and others, all mounted, 
to the number of about a hundred. The Common-Eiding Choir 
sing appropriate melodies. Then the riders proceed on their 
gallop round the marches, and not unusually several "spills" 
occur among the inexperienced equestrians. Eefreshments are 
served at different places during the journey, and the lease of 
one farm obliges the tenant to regale the horsemen at the Com- 
mon-Eiding. Eaces are run for switches amidst wild excitement, 
and then the company return to the town, where a picturesque 
ceremony takes place commemorating the noble achievements 
of the famous Selkirk Souters at Flodden Field. The Hammer- 
men and the Souters cast the colors to the tune of " Up wi' the 
Souters o' Selkirk," and the ceremony is concluded with tumul- 
tuous cheers. The Selkirk Common-Eiding is the great festival 
of the year in the town, and does much to foster local esprit de 
corps, and to preserve the historical and legendary lore of this 
beautiful Border district. (Ditchfield : Old English Customs, 
p. 119.) 

Another famous riding occurs in the parish of Hawick, Eox- 
burghshire. The honor of carrying the standard of the town 
devolves upon the cornet, a young man previously elected for 
the purpose ; and he and the magistrates of the town on horse- 
back, and a large body of the inhabitants and the burgesses, set 
out in procession for the purpose of riding round the property 



648 CURIOSITIES OF 

of the town and making formal demonstration of their legal 
rights. 

Lanemar or Landmark Day is still observed in June of every 
year in Lanark, Scotland, by beating the marches of the town 
lands. One of the march stones is in the river Mouse, and for- 
merly those who shared in the march for the first time were 
ducked in the river, to impress the event on their memories and 
give the town the benefit of their immemorial recollection. 

Margaret, St. One of the tutelar saints of Cremona, and 
patroness of women in childbirth. Her festival is celebrated by 
the Eoman Church on July 20, the reputed anniversary of her 
martyrdom, which is said to have occurred in the last general 
persecution. The Greeks, however, make the date July 17. The 
legend represents her as a native of Antioch in Pisidia, who was 
converted by a Christian nurse, was persecuted by her own 
father, a pagan priest, and was beheaded after many torments. 
While in prison awaiting death she was visited by the devil in 
the form of a dragon, who swallowed her, but instantly burst 
asunder, leaving her unhurt. On her way to the place of 
execution she prayed that, in memory of her having been deliv- 
ered unhurt from the dragon, she might aid all women who 
called on her in the pains of childbirth. Her cult spread from 
the East to England, France, Germany, and Italy during the 
eleventh century, and in the thirteenth her anniversary was 
made a holiday of obligation in England, all manual labor being 
forbidden. Her body is shown entire at Monte Fiascone, in Tus- 
cany. Another body, equally authentic, is in the monastery of 
St. Catherine at Mount Sinai. In addition, half a dozen heads 
and other relics are exhibited in various European churches. In 
art, St. Margaret is represented with a cross in her hand and a 
dragon by her side, and sometimes as rising from a dragon. 

Mariazell. A little village in the duchy of Styria, Austria, 
containing the most famous shrine in Austria. The object of 
veneration is a miracle-working image of the Virgin, carved. in 
lime-tree wood and about eighteen inches high. It was found in 
the ninth century on the plateau where the village now stands, 
and after many vicissitudes came into the possession of a priest 
of the Benedictine order, Avho in 1157 built a shrine for it. 
Henry I., Marquis of Moravia, replaced the shrine by a chapel 
in 1200, and Ludwig I., King of Hungary, after recovery here 
from a painful attack of gout, transformed the chapel into the 
present large church in 1363. The towers on either side of the 
Gothic spire are, however, of much later origin. The treasure- 
chamber is reported to possess valuables to the extent of over a 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 649 

million dollars. Many pilgrims come as mere holiday-makers, 
but still more in search of miraculous cures. Over a hundred 
thousand men, women, and even children pass yearly over the 
roads that converge towards this town, — chiefly peasants from all 
parts of the dual monarchy, from Northern Bohemia, from 
Southern Hungary, from as far off as Croatia, — peasants dressed 
in different national costumes, and speaking languages of equal 
variety. The entire population of a village may march out 
under the leadership of the village school-master, carrying a 
banner. In summer they can easily cover a distance of fifty 
miles, and they sing hymns for spiritual stimulation when bodily 
weariness sets in. In fine weather they sleep in the woods, in 
the meadows, or by the roadside. On wet nights they find 
shelter in wide spaces specially provided for them under the 
rafters of wayside taverns. The tariff per head is about a dime 
in our money. The poorer pilgrims, however, are glad to enjoy 
a " twopenny doss" on the dusty floors of the passages. 

For pilgrims from Vienna the journey to and from takes four 
days. Their point of departure is the old cathedral of St. 
Stephen. They divide themselves into troops and walk in the 
wake of a banner. Each pilgrim carries a garland in his left 
hand and sticks ornamented with flowers in his right. The men 
wear large straw hats; the women don their holiday attire, 
including a lace bonnet. Many pilgrims, both male and female, 
make the pilgrimage in bare feet. Hymns are sung or prayers 
chanted all the way. At the approaches to the sacred city the 
various bands of pilgrims from all points of the compass mingle 
into one common stream. The climbing of the mountain, owing 
to the narrow roadway, can be accomplished only in couples. 
On reaching the summit the pilgrims hasten to prostrate them- 
selves before the sacred image. All day long crowds of people 
fill the church. At night-time all who cannot afford or who fail 
to find shelter in the hotels sleep under improvised tents in the 
neighborhood of the sanctuary. When the pilgrimage is finished 
the pilgrims return home laden down with souvenirs of Maria- 
zell in the shape of images, prayer-books, and rosaries purchased 
at the booths in the village. 

Maries, Feast of the Holy. (Fr. Fete des Saintes Maries.) 
A festival celebrated in Provence, France, on April 24. The 
Provengal legend tells how during the persecution that arose 
shortly after the death of Christ certain of his intimates — viz., 
Lazarus and his two sisters Martha and Mary (the latter being 
identified by the legend with Mary Magdalene), Mary mother 
of James the Less, Mary Salome, Sara, their handmaiden, Tro- 
phimus, Saturninus, Maximin, and others — were forced into an 



650 CURIOSITIES OF 

unseaworthy boat and set adrift in the Mediterranean. The 
crazy bark, miraculously preserved from destruction, was guided 
to the shores of Provence, and the involuntary missionaries, 
landing at the extremity of the Camargue, devoted themselves 
to the evangelization of the country. Trophimus converted 
Aries ; Saturninus, Toulouse ; and Martha, Tarascon. But the 
three Maries lived and died on the Mediterranean coast, the 
Magdalene in her famous grotto, and the two others with their 
handmaiden Sara at the original landing-place, where they built 
themselves a cell. Sometimes fishermen passed by that lonely 
coast, and to them the saintly women preached the true faith 
and won them to Christ. Sometimes from Aries Trophimus 
came and administered the sacraments to his sisters in the 
Church. And the fame of the holiness of the three women went 
abroad, and when, after they died, they were buried where they 
had lived, people journeyed from far and near to visit and pray 
at the tomb, and many miracles were worked, so that their re- 
nown grew ever greater and greater. Before many years it 
had become a well-known place of pilgrimage, — one of the most 
ancient in France, — and a mighty church was built over their 
lowly altar, and many and strange were the wonders wrought. 

But Saracens and Danes reduced the church to ruins, and it 
was eventually rebuilt by William I., Count of Provence. So 
runs the local legend. Authentic history is silent as to the origin 
of the ancient church, but affirms that in 1448 the good King 
Eene discovered three bodies here which he decided were the 
remains of the two Maries and of Sara. He enclosed the Maries 
in a richly adorned casket, and built for its reception the curious 
little chapel on the roof of the church where they now repose 
and whence they are let down by pulleys once a year on the 
Maries' fete-day into the cavernous choir below. The relics of 
St. Sara were placed in the crypt, and are specially reverenced 
by the gypsies, who claim her as having been of their own race. 

The feast of the Holy Maries, which is celebrated annually on 
the 23d, 24th, and 25th of May, attracts thousands of pilgrims, 
mostly farmers, peasants, and gypsies. The 24th is the great 
day when the relics are lowered into the choir. The scene is thus 
described by Joseph J. Pennell in the Century : 

" By three o'clock the church was nearly full ; by four it was 
jammed. Around each door outside was a great crowd ; inside 
there was not an empty seat. The long ray of light which 
streamed in through the broken rose-window at the western end 
was momentarily shut out by the people who had climbed even 
away up there. Every one in nave and gallery held a lighted 
candle, which twinkled and flickered and waved with the great 
volume of the singing. ' We are in heaven, and the stars are 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 651 

under our feet,' Gounod said when, one 24th of May, he looked 
down upon the same scene. In the raised choir the sick still 
waited, their friends and a few priests still prayed and chanted. 
' The church was like a wind-swept wood' with the mighty voice 
of their supplication. 

" Suddenly there was a cry of ' They come !' The people 
around the altar fell on their knees ; for from the airy chapel, 
high above the choir, a great double ark hung suspended, and 
now began to move downward, though almost imperceptibly. 
As it came slowly nearer the sick and infirm were raised toward 
it in the arms of the strong. Women fairly wrestled together, 
each seeking to be the first to lay her hand upon the holy relics. 
When it was a few feet from its resting-place a solemn procession 
of white-robed clergy passed from the sacristy to the choir, and 
one priest, springing upon the altar, seized and kissed the rehcs. 
At the same moment he was surrounded by the sick, who, as 
though the longed-for miracle had already been worked, pushed 
and struggled to touch and be healed. The priest held the 
relics, and the people, pressing closer and closer, fell upon them, 
touching them with their hands, their eyes, and even their crip- 
pled limbs, kissing them passionately, clasping them with frenzy. 
It seemed as though the priest's vestments must be torn to 
shreds, the relics broken and scattered in a thousand fragments, 
from the very fervor of the faithful. But finally the last kiss was 
given, the last petition uttered, the ark was set at rest upon the 
altar, the sick were placed all around it, and the chants rose 
louder and sweeter than ever, — ' Yivent les Saintes Maries !' " 

On the morning of the 25th a long procession marched from 
the church to the sea-shore. It was headed by the banners 
given by the various towns of Provence. Then came the Arch- 
bishop of Aix, attended by clergy and acolytes ; next the sick 
and ailing, some hobbling on crutches, some borne on mattresses, 
others dragged along by their friends. " Last of all a struggling 
crowd of gypsies carried aloft the rude figures of the two Maries 
in their little boat, and on every side devout pilgrims strove to 
kiss, or at least to touch, the holy t>ark. Across the sands to the 
sea they went, to the water's edge, and then right into the 
water, gypsies, people, and even priests. For a moment the 
boat was set afloat upon the waves, there where at the dawn of 
Christianity the wind had driven the saints from Jerusalem. 
And the gypsies again raised it aloft, and waded to land ; the 
procession, with banners waving, candles flickering dimly in the 
sunshine, hymns loudly chanted, turned again across the sands, 
through the shadowy streets, and brought back their beloved 
Maries to the church. The sick were placed once more about 
the altar, and shouts of ' Yivent les Saintes Maries !' echoed 



652 CURIOSITIES OF 

through the church, until, toward evening, the ark rose slowly 
to its airy chapel, while the faithful watched it with loving 
eyes." 

On the foundation of the ruined chateau of Les Baux, in 
Aries, are carved three figures in Eoraan drapery with an almost 
effaced Latin inscription, which are held to be portraits of the 
Maries. These are visited hy the neighboring peasantry on May 
24 and decorated with flowers. ^Nevertheless, there are ration- 
alists who hold that the three figures were made to represent the 
great general Marius (who was encamped near by for many 
months during his Gallic campaign, 100 B.C.), his wife Julia, and 
Martha, a Syrian prophetess, by whom Plutarch tells us that he 
was always accompanied. 

Mark, St., patron saint of Yenice. His festival is celebrated 
on the anniversary of his death, April 25 (68). 

St. Mark the Evangelist was not an apostle, but a convert. 
He was the beloved disciple of St. Peter, who converted him. 
He journeyed with St. Peter to Eome, and there wrote his Gos- 
pel, according to some authorities, at the dictation of St. Peter. 
He afterwards went to Egypt, where he founded the Church of 
Alexandria, becoming bishop of the diocese. On account of the 
many miracles that he wrought, St. Mark was accused of being 
a sorcerer, and he was seized and dragged through the streets 
with cords until he died, a.d. 68. It is related that as soon as he 
expired a terrible storm of hail and lightning arose which de- 
stroyed his persecutors. The Christians buried his remains in 
Alexandria, where they were highly venerated. 

Centuries passed. The great and growing city of Yenice cast 
envious eyes upon the tomb of the Evangelist. She believed, 
though the legend was never received by the Church universal, 
that St. Mark had been sent by St. Peter as apostle to Aquileja, 
and that on his return to Eome his bark, driven by the wind, 
came to a landing on the low island which was the first site of 
the city of the lagoons. Here, while he was rapt in ecstasy, an 
angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, "Pax tibi, Marce. 
Hie requiescet corpus tuum." (" Peace be with thee, Mark. 
Here shall thy body rest.") The angel went on to prophesy that 
a devout and faithful people would here, after many years, build 
a marvellous city (mirificam urbern), and would deserve to possess 
the body of the saint, and that through his merits and prayers 
they would be greatly blessed. 

Early in the ninth century two Yenetian merchants, visiting 
Alexandria and finding that the Church authorities were fearful 
lest the shrine of St. Mark should be desecrated by the Saracens, 
succeeded in obtaining the coveted remains. The voyage to 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 653 

Venice witnessed many miracles which gave assurance of the 
willingness of the saint to be transferred to his destined abode. 
On the vessel's arrival the Doge himself, accompanied by all the 
clergy, came down to the landing-place and bore the holy relics 
to the ducal chapel, where they were deposited until a more 
fitting resting-place could be prepared for them. 

That resting-place w^as the church of St. Mark's, erected about 
829, but destroyed by tire in 976 and rebuilt in 1042-1071. 
When the second church was finished the consecration was de- 
layed. Ever since the fire of 976, for now a hundred years, the 
body of St. Mark had disappeared. This was occasion, says the 
Doge Andrea Dandolo in his chronicle, " of lamentation to the 
clergy, and of great depression to the laity." It was not to be 
believed that the sacred treasure, the ];alladium of the city, des- 
tined for it by the decree of Heaven, had perished. Without it 
the new church must remain vacant of its chief dignity. It 
could not be the divine will that Venice should be deprived of 
her own special saint. Now that at length the church was fin- 
ished and adorned worthily to contain such a treasure, it was 
resolv^ed, in June, 1094, to keep a fast throughout the city, and 
to make a most solemn procession through the church, with de- 
vout supplication to the Almighty that he would be pleased to 
reveal the place of concealment of the sacred relics. And, lo ! 
while the procession was moving, of a sudden a light broke from 
one of the piers, a sound of cracking was heard, bricks fell upon 
the pavement, and there, within the pier, was beheld the body 
of the saint, with the arm stretched out, as if he had moved it 
to make the opening in the masonry; and on one finger was a 
ring of gold, which, after others had tried in vain, was drawn 
off by Giovanni Dolfino, one of the counsellors of the Doge. 

The joy of the people was now as great as their grief had 
been before. The miracle quickened their devotion and excited 
their fancy, and on the 8th of October following, " the church 
being dedicated to God, the reverend body was laid away in a 
secret place, the Doge, the priniate, and the procurator alone 
knowing where." 

There was another body of St. Mark, however, at Constanti- 
nople, whence the head was brought to Soissons. Arms of the 
saint are shown at St. Mark's Church in Eome, at Marolles, 
Canibrai, and other places. 

On the feast of St. Mark the Catholic Church sings her great 
litanies to beg that God will avert the scourges due to sin, a 
custom said to have originated with Gregory the Great. Hence 
in old calendars the feast is known as Litania Major. Anciently 
solemn processions of covered crosses were held on this day. 
These were frequently confounded with the Eogation processions, 



654 CURIOSITIES OF 

which, depending upon the movable feast of the Ascension, 
might occasionally fall as early as April 26. 

In England, during the rule of the Eoman Church, St. Mark's 
Day was a great fast. Yaughan says, " I remember, in 1589, 
being then a bo}', that an ale-wife, making no exception of days, 
would brew upon St. Mark's Day. While she was thus laboring 
the chimney took fire and her house was burnt. Surely a gentle 
warning to them that violate forbidden days." Another writer 
observes "that though there was not anciently any fast-day be- 
tween Easter and Whitsunday, the Popes had devised a mon- 
strous fast on St. Mark's Day" St. Mark, it appears, was made 
an exception, and " had his day fasted," 

At Alnwick, in Northumberland, England, a ridiculous custom 
called the Freeman's March {q. v.) was kept up till a recent date 
on St, Mark's Day. 

Marriage. Originally man appears to have been a polyg- 
amous animal. The Jews of the earlier Old Testament period 
were polygamous, but later changed their ways, possibly through 
the influence of their Roman conquerors. Jews since then and 
Christians from the time of the foundation of their religion have 
been ostensibly monogamous. The Cathohc and Greek Churches 
make marriage a sacrament, and most other Christian creeds 
hold that the presence of an ofliciating clergyman, if not actually 
obligatory, is, what is more awe-inspiring, "correct." ]^ever- 
theless many of the social customs that surround the Christian 
ceremony have their roots in the pagan past. 

In that past marriage was first intertribal, and then exogamous, 
or outside of the tribe. The first form of exogamous marriage 
was marriage by capture. The bridegroom simply went out on 
the war-path, accompanied by a doughty friend or two, seized 
upon such damsel as had strayed away from parental covert, and 
carried her away to his home. 

In our modern marriage rite the very name of that now use- 
less appendage the " best man" suggests that he is a relic of 
marriage by capture. He was the strong-armed warrior who 
assisted the would-be groom to carry off his bride. The wedding- 
ring symbolizes the fetter with which the bride was bound; the 
jocose slipper thrown after the departing couple adumbrates the 
angry missiles hurled by the outstripped pursuers of the past. 
The honeymoon itself symbolizes that space of time when the 
captor had to hide his prize from her kinsmen until their con- 
sent had been gained. 

More obvious survivals are found in all primitive neighbor- 
hoods. Among the Irish mountaineers a marriage is considered 
but a tame affair unless the bridegroom run away with the bride. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 655 

In Cardiganshire, Wales, the relatives of the bride assemble 
and offer a mock resistance to the entrance of the groom, and 
after a good deal of scuffling and horse-play a dialogue (chiefly 
in verse) is carried on by two persons, — one on either side. After 
this the bridegroom is admitted, and sets about seeking the 
bride, who is commonly disguised in some manner, — as an old 
woman, for instance, with a male infant, a symbol of good luck 
and promise of sons, upon her lap. On arriving at the church 
door the bride is seized by her relatives, who ride off with her, 
the bridegroom and his party in pursuit. On being overtaken 
the bride is at once handed over, and whoever caught her is cer- 
tain to be married within a year. 

Marriage by purchase succeeded marriage by capture. Indeed, 
the two gradually merged together in the latter days of the cap- 
ture period. The pursuing father gradually learned to mitigate 
his wrath in the presence of cash or other equivalent. The 
bridegroom might offer in lieu of cash his own sister, or horses, 
or cattle, or land. This kind of marriage is still prevalent among 
semi-civilized as the other among barbarous nations. For example, 
it exists among the Chinese and various Mohammedan tribes. 

Perhaps the most perfect system of marriage by purchase was 
that of the Babylonians and Assyrians. They assembled all 
girls of marriageable age in the space before the temple twice a 
year, and sold them. The handsome girls brought high prices, 
and the sums so received were turned over to the homely ones 
as a counter-attraction. Thus every girl caught a husband, 
some by beauty and some by money. 

Marriage by purchase was prevalent among the Anglo-Saxons 
at the time when Christianity first reached them. Every woman 
was under the care of some man, who was termed her mundhora^ 
or guardian ; and no one could marry her without having paid a 
sum of money as a compensation to him. The father was the 
guardian of his unmarried daughters ; the brother, if the father 
died ; and the next to him the nearest male relative. If, how- 
ever, the female was friendless and alone, she found in the king 
her legal guardian. The maid was estimated according to her 
rank in life. The first step in courtship, therefore, was to buy 
the consent of the mundbora ; the lover was then admitted into 
the society of his mistress, and allowed to claim her in due 
course as his wife. If, however, her personal charms or her 
disposition proved, on better acquaintance, unsatisfactory to her 
suitor, and he failed to complete the bargain, he immediately 
became amenable to the law. If a man ventured to marry 
without first having bought and paid for his wife, he was guilty 
of the crime of muridbreach, the consequences of which were both 
vexatious and disastrous. The husband in such a case possessed 



656 CURIOSITIES OF 

no legal authority over his wife; he was a husband, in fact, 
without a wife ; he had no right to her property. By the same 
law a maiden and a widow were of separate value ; the latter could 
be purchased for one-half the sum which the guardian of a maid 
was entitled to demand ; the man, therefore, w^ho could not afford 
to purchase a maid might perhaps be able to purchase a widow. 

Thrupp, in his " Anglo-Saxon House," gives a full account of a 
wedding in those days. Not till the ninth or tenth century did 
women obtain the privilege of choosing or refusing their hus- 
bands. Often they were betrothed when children, the bride- 
groom's pledge of marriage being accompanied by a security, or 
" wed," whence comes the word. Part of the wedding always 
consisted of a ring placed on the maiden's right hand and there 
religiously kept until transferred to the other hand at the later 
nuptials. Then, also, were repeated the mari^iage vows and other 
ceremonies, out of which those now prevailing have grown. The 
bride was taken " for fairer or fouler, for better or worse, for 
richer or poorer," and promised to be " buxom and bonny" to 
her future husband. At the final ceremony the bridegroom put 
the ring on each of the bride's left-hand fingers in turn, saying 
at the first, "in the name of the Father;" at the second, "in the 
name of the Son ;" at the third, " in the name of the Holy 
Cxhost;" and at the fourth, "Amen." Then also the father gave 
to his new son one of his daughter's shoes, in token of the trans- 
fer of authority which he effected, and the bride was at once 
made to feel the change by a tap or a blow on the head given 
with the shoe. The husband on his part took an oath to use his 
wife well. If he failed to do so, she might leave him, but by the 
law he was allowed considerable license. He was bound in honor 
" to bestow on his wife and apprentices moderate castigation." 
An old Welsh law decides that three blows with a broomstick on 
" any part of the person except the head" is a fair allowance, 
and another provides that the stick be no longer than the hus- 
band's arm nor thicker than his middle finger. Prior to the 
seventh century a wife might at any time be repudiated on 
proof of her being either barren, deformed, silly, passionate, 
luxurious, rude, habitually drunk, gluttonous, very garrulous, 
quarrelsome, or abusive. 

Even after the triumph of Christianity marriage for a long 
time continued to be a purely secular matter. But slowly and 
gradually the Church encroached upon the State until she finally 
arrogated to herself the control of marriage as a department of 
life lying within the province of sacerdotal duty. She drew her 
precedents from the past. Under the Eoman republic marriage 
was a solemn religious ordinance. Under the Empire, when 
religion fell into contempt, it came to be virtually a civil contract. 



I 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



657 



Christianity gave back to marriage its religious character, but 
only by slow degrees. At first Christian couples pairing off 
together asked for the blessing of their pastor. In mediaeval 
times the priest was even called in to bless the marriage bed. 




Blessing the Marriage Bed. 
(From an old German print.) 

The custom of an ecclesiastical marriage became more and more 
general. Finally, in 1563, at the Council of Trent, it was made 
binding. , 

Though the Protestants rejected the sacramental idea of mar- 
riage, they none the less looked upon it as a divine institution, 
and its celebration in church grew to be indispensable. 

The ancient usage was for the priest to join the hands of the 
man and woman after their consent to the marriage, with such 
words as "Et ego vos conjungo," etc. Then he laid the ends of 
his stole upon the hands so joined. It is ordered in some early 
Eoman Sacerdotalia, but disappeared from the Eoman Eituale at 
or before the revision of Paul Y. It was, however, retained in 
the local books of many Continental dioceses. 

42 



658 CURIOSITIES OF 

At Liege the hands were bound together with the ends of the 
stole, and the practice was the same elsewhere. But it would 
seem that the usage was not followed in England. Indeed, the 
ceremony with which it is connected is absent from most English 
books, probably because in the English forms of the service the 
joining of hands took place at the time when the man and 
woman gave their troth to each other. The later joining of 
their hands by the priest after the delivery of the ring was 
introduced into England in 1549. It is a ceremony analogous to 
but distinct from that with which the action with the stole is 
sometimes conjoined. 

To mark the importance and validity of a betrothal, the Coun- 
cil of Trent also declared clandestine betrothals to be null and 
void. It required them to be celebrated before the cure, in the 
presence of two or three witnesses at least. Greater weight was 
afterwards given to this article by an ordonnance of Louis XIII., 
which forbade any notary (that is, any civilian) to sanction or 
receive any promise of the kind. Before the first French Revo- 
lution, such was the importance attached to this pious custom 
that, except with an express dispensation from the bishop, a 
priest could not betroth and marry a young couple in the same 
day. It was requisite that a certain lapse of time, as a test of 
their fidelity, should intervene between the one ceremony and 
the other. The old French canon law had provided for the case 
in which a faithless fiance should marry any other than his be- 
trothed bride. The marriage consecrated by a sacrament was 
more binding than the simple engagement of betrothal; but if 
the culprit became a widower, and his first love required it of 
him, he was obliged to purge his guilt by taking her to wife. 

Another way in which the Church had marked its authority 
long before the Council of Trent was by the prohibition of mar- 
riage during certain periods, as the seasons of Advent, Lent, 
and Whitsuntide. The old register of Cottenham, Cambridge- 
shire contains this triplet in doggerel Latin : 

Conjugium Adventus prohibet, Hilarique relaxat, 
Septuagena vetat, sed Paschse octava remittit, 
Rogamen vetitat, concedit Trina potestas. 

Similar lines in English are inserted in the register of Everton, 
Nottinghamshire : 

Advent marriage doth deny, 

But Hilary gives thee liberty. 

Septuagesima says thee nay, 

Eight days from Easter says you may. 

Rogation bids thee to contain, 

But Trinity sets thee free again. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 659 

The close time was restricted to Advent and Lent by the Coun- 
cil of Trent {Condi. Trident., 24. Sessio, cap. x.), but this decree 
had no force in England, and the canons of the Anglican Church 
still forbid marriages to be celebrated between Eogation Sunday 
and Trinity Sunday. Such prohibitions, however, have ceased 
to be regarded in England, and Lent has become, during the 
present reign, the favorite season for royal marriages. 

And now a glance at marriage customs the world over. 

In the Greek Church the rites are more elaborate than in any 
other Christian denomination, if the contracting parties be of 
any social influence. 

Fashion demands for the celebration of the ceremony the 
chapel of some private house, if the couple have not sufficiently 
lofty relations to secure the chapel of the palace. A family that 
respects itself ought to have at its wedding as honorary father 
and honorary mother, if not the Emperor and the Empress, at 
least a grand-duke and a grand-duchess. The honorary father 
gives the holy image, which some little child related to the fam- 
ilies carries in front of the fiances. They enter the church, fol- 
lowed by all their friends in gala uniform. The ceremony begins ; 
it is very long, and complicated with many symbolic rites ; a 
small table — a sort of movable altar — is placed in the middle of 
the oratory ; the couple are separated from it by a band of rose- 
colored satin ; when the priest calls, they must advance, and the 
first who sets foot on the band, whether husband or wife, will be 
the one Avho will impose his or her will on the household. This 
is an article of faith for all the matrons, who watch them at that 
moment. On the table are placed the liturgical formulary, the 
candles which they must hold, the cross which they will kiss, 
the rings which they will exchange, the cup of wine in which 
they will moisten their lips, and which is called in the Slavonic 
ritual " the cup of bitterness." Pages relieve each other to carry 
with outstretched arms two heavy crowns, which must be held 
above the heads of the fiances while the ceremony continues. 
At the decisive moment, when the priest is pronouncing the 
words that bind them together, the couple walk three times 
around the altar, followed by the crown-bearers ; until the third 
turn is completed there is time to turn back ; after that the die 
is cast, the couple are united for life. Thereupon the singers 
strike up in their most strident voices the joyous hymn "Let 
Israel rejoice." 

The bride and groom then go and prostrate themselves before 
a picture of the Yirgin, after which they pass into the salon, where 
champagne is opened and the guests are presented with boxes of 
sweetmeats marked with the monograms of the young couple. 

To eat maize pudding from the same plate, or to eat in any way 



660 CURIOSITIES OF 

together, is a widely distributed marriage ceremony. In Brazil 
a couple may be married by drinking brandy together ; in Japan, 
by so many cups of wine ; in Eussia and Scandinavia it used to 
be one cup for both. The joining of hands among the Eomans 
and Hindoos is common to many parts of the world. In Scot- 
land it is called " hand-fasting," and couples live together after. 
To sit together on a seat while receiving friends, or to have the 
hands of each tied together with grass, or to smear with each 
other's blood, or for the woman to tie a cord of her own twisting 
around the naked waist of the man, constitutes marriage in one 
part or another. 

In Australia a woman carries fire to her lover's hut and makes 
a fire for him. In America she lays a bundle of rods at the door 
of his tent. A Loango negress cooks two dishes for him in his 
own hut. In Croatia the bridegroom boxes the bride's ears, and 
in Eussia the father formerly struck his daughter gently with a 
new whip — for the last time — and then gave the weapon to her 
husband. Down to the present, it is a custom in Hungary for 
the groom to give the bride a kick after the marriage ceremony, 
to make her feel her subjection. Even with all civilized peoples 
the servitude of the bride is clearly indicated. 

The Jewish ceremony is picturesque. The bride dresses in 
pure white satin, and faces the bridegroom under the chuppah, 
or matrimonial baldacchino. The ritual is read, and a cup of 
consecrated wine is presented to bride and groom to be sipped. 
Then comes the address from the officiating rabbi, who closes 
by taking a glass of wine in his hand and pronouncing the 
seven prescribed benedictions. Again bridegroom and bride 
taste the cup ; after which the groom places it on the floor and 
crushes it to atoms under his feet, as a symbol that the marriage 
must last until the fragments can be united. The first kiss under 
the new relation is given, and the newly wedded man escorts 
his wife from chuppah to entrance and then home to the mar- 
riage-feast. 

Martha, St., of Bethany, patron saint of cooks and house- 
wives. Her festival is celebrated on July 29, the reputed anni- 
versary of her death (a.d. 84). She figures in the Gospels as the 
sister of Lazarus and the friend of Christ. (For the legend of 
her adventures after the crucifixion see Mary Magdalene, 
whom tradition makes her sister ; also Maries, the Three.) 
She is specially honored in Tarascon, the city built on the spot 
where she captured a terrible dragon called Tarasque which was 
devastating the neighborhood, and which she bound fast with 
her girdle so that the people could come up and slay him. The 
famous Miracle Play of Sainte-Marthe et el Tarasque, instituted, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



661 



it was said, by King Eene in 1400, was one of the last Provencal 
coronlas to disappear, as in its day it was one of the most pop- 
ular. Louis XI. came down to see it in 1444, when he was still 
dauphin. At all events, he solemnly protested that he came for 
the play alone, though unfriendly critics accused him of wish- 
ing to spy out the land and estimate his chances of succeeding 
to his uncle King Eene, whose only daughter Margaret was the 
hapless wife of Henry YI. of England. 




La Tarasqtje. 

Even after the Mystery Play was itself abandoned, a remnant 
of it lingered on until the middle of the nineteenth century, in 
the annual procession of La Tarasque celebrated on July 29 not 
only at Tarascon but also at Beaucaire. The main feature was 
a huge figure of a dragon, made of wood and canvas, eight feet 
long, three feet high, and four feet broad in the middle. The 
head was small, there was no neck, the body, which was covered 
with scales, was shaped like an enormous Qgg^ and at the nether 
extremity was a heavy beam of wood for a tail. Sixteen mum- 
mers gayly caparisoned and known as the Knights of la Tarasque 
were among its attendants. Eight of the knights concealed 
themselves within the body to represent those who had been 
devoured, and furnished the motive power, besides lashing the tail 
to right and left, at imminent risk to the legs of the spectators. 
The other eight formed the escort, and were followed by drum- 
mers and fifers and a long procession of clergy and laity. The 
dragon was conducted by a girl in white and blue, the leading- 
string being her girdle of blue silk. When the dragon was 
especially unruly and frolicsome she dashed holy water over it. 



662 CURIOSITIES OF 

A continuous rattle of torpedoes and musketry was kept up by 
those who followed in the dragon's train. 

The merrymaking was often emphasized by practical joking 
of a rude sort which frequently led to violent affrays. It was 
these scenes of disorder which caused the suppression of the 
spectacle. But the Tarasque itself is still preserved. 

St. Martha's attributes in art are a dragon and a pot of holy 
water, the latter distinguishing her from St. Margaret, who 
bears a cross. A cooking-utensil is sometimes substituted for 
the pot. 

The body of St. Martha, miraculously discovered in the thir- 
teenth century at Tarascon, is still preserved in a splendid sub- 
terraneous chapel of the collegiate church of St. Martha in 
that town. The head is kept in a rich bust of gold presented 
by Louis XI. 

Martin, St. Bishop of Tours, patron of that city and gener- 
ally of beggars, tavern-keepers, and vine-growers. His prin- 
cipal festival, famous under the name of Martinmas, occurs on 
[N'ovember 11, the day of his burial. A minor feast in honor of 
his ordination and the translation of his relics is celebrated 
locally in France on July 4, and another in honor of their return 
from Auxerre to Tours, called Eelatio, on December 13. 

The son of a Eoman military tribune, born at Sabaria, Hun- 
gary, about 316, and bred a soldier, St. Martin forsook the army 
to retire into monastic seclusion, whence he emerged in 371 to 
become Bishop of Tours. It was during his military career that 
he divided his cloak with a poor beggar shivering at the gate of 
Amiens. Both before and during his bishopric he proved an 
earnest preacher of the gospel, converting the entire province to 
Christianity, destroying many pagan temples, and beating back 
the inroads of Arianism. He recalled to life, for the purpose of 
baptism, two people who had died without that sacrament, and 
performed many other wonders. The Emperor Maximus, when 
he established his capital at Treves, invited the saint to a royal 
banquet. Wishing to pay him a special mark of honor, Maxi- 
mus offered him the wine cup before drinking himself, whereupon 
Martin passed it to a humble priest who stood behind him, to 
show that he accounted the least of the servants of God before 
the greatest rulers of- earth, — an action that w^as loudly ap- 
plauded by the Emperor and all bis court. St. Martin died on 
the 8th of November, probably in 397. Poitiers warmly dis- 
puted the possession of his body, but the people of Tours car- 
ried it off and buried it in a neighboring grove amid a vast con- 
course, among whom were two thousand monks and a great con- 
course of virgins. Here St. Brice, his successor in the bishopric, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 663 

built a chapel, and later St. Perpetuus founded the great church 
and monastery of St. Martin, a sumptuous tomb at the back of 
the high altar being erected for the remains, which were trans- 
lated hither on July 4. The shrine became so great a place of 
pilgrimage for all Europe that in mediaeval times it was called a 
second Jerusalem, and the fame of its riches tempted the Sara- 
cens to press northward to the plains of Touraine, but, fortu- 
nately, to be forever crushed in Gaul by Charles Martel. In 
the sixteenth century the Huguenots rifled the tomb and scat- 
tered the relics, but the church recovered a bone of his arm and 
a part of his skull. Before this dispersion certain churches had 
obtained small portions, which they still preserve. Thus, the 
priory of St. Martin's-in-the-Field in Paris possessed a part, and 
two teeth are shown at St. Martin's at Tournay. The cloak 
which St. Martin divided with the beggar was for many centu- 
ries preserved in an oratory near the church in Tours, and was 
carried as a banner in war. It is said that the word chapel, — 
French chapelle, — derived from chape or cape, was first applied 
to this oratory, and that chaplain or chapelain was originally the 
person intrusted with the care of it. 

As the feast of Martinmas occurs at the genial period of the 
year when the harvest is in, and cattle are slain for the winter 
season, and new wine is first opened and tasted, it followed that 
Martin became the embodiment of good cheer and inherited 
some of the characteristics of the ancient Bacchus. There is 
certainly a strong resemblance between the Yinalia of the an- 
cients and the Martinalia of the mediaeval period. Brand quotes 
an ancient ecclesiastical calendar which under the head of No- 
vember 11 expressly says, " The Yinalia, a feast of the ancients 
removed to this day, Bacchus in the figure of Martin." The 
Danes and the Saxons made St. Martin's Day the occasion of a 
special carouse which evidently borrowed some of its details from 
the Roman original. 

In continental Europe, the fat goose which in England is most 
appropriate to Michaelmas was *eaten on St. Martin's Day and 
washed down with copious draughts of wine. A fatted ox, 
sometimes called a mart, was substituted in England. That is 
one reason why the saint and his feast became so popular with 
beef-eating Britons. No less than seven churches were named 
after him in London. A more emphatic mark of popular ap- 
proval was blazoned in the hall of the Yintners' Company, where 
Bacchus and St. Martin divide the pictorial and statuary honors. 

When Sir Samuel Dash wood, a vintner, became lord mayor in 
Queen Anne's time, he had the soldier saint in full armor in his 
show, preceded by Roman lictors, and followed by a troop of beg- 
gars " howling lamentably." At St. Paul's Churchyard he who 



664 CURIOSITIES OF 

personated the saint cut his scarlet velvet cloak in many pieces, 
which he distributed among them, much to the edification of her 
majesty, who thereafter graciously condescended to dine with 
the lord mayor at the Guildhall, and to eat and drink a great 
deal, as became Martinmas, and as was that red-faced woman's 
habit. 

In the North Eiding of Yorkshire it was formerly customary 
for a party of singers, mostly consisting of women, to begin at 
the feast of St. Martin a kind of peregrination round the neigh- 
boring villages, carrying with them a small waxen image of our 
Saviour adorned with box and other evergreens, and singing at 
the same time a hymn which, though rustic and uncouth, was 
nevertheless replete with the sacred story of the E'ativity. 
" The custom is yearly continued till Christmas Eve, when the 
feasting, or, as they usually call it, ' good living,' commences ; 
every rustic dame produces a cheese preserved for the sacred 
festival, upon which, before any part of it is tasted, according to 
an old custom, she with a sharp knife makes rude incisions to 
represent the cross. With this, and furmity made of barley and 
meal, the cottage affords uninterrupted hospitality." (^Gentle- 
man's Magazine^ 1811, vol. Ixxxi. pt. i. p. 423.) 

At St. Peter's, Athlone, Ireland, " every family of a village." 
says Mason, in his "Statistical Account of Ireland" (1819, vol. 
iii. p. 75), "kills an animal of some kind or other: those who 
are rich kill a cow or a sheep, others a goose or a turkey ; while 
those who are poor and cannot procure an animal of greater 
value kill a hen or a cock, and sprinkle the threshold with the 
blood, and do the same in the four corners of the house, and this 
ceremonious performance is done to exclude every kind of evil 
spirit from the dwelling where this sacrifice is made, till the 
return of the same day in the following year." 

If St. Martin's Day be bright and sunshiny there will be a 
cold winter, or if the trees and vines still retain their foliage the 
same will follow. But if there be frost before Martinmas the 
winter will be mild. If the goose slips on the ice at Martinmas 
she will stick in the mud at Christmas. 

Martinmas in some places is rent-day, and debts are paid and 
cancelled ; the servants also change places on that day, and they 
say of any one who is changeable and flighty, "He'll eat no 
Martin's kail," meaning that he'll not stay a year in the same 
place. 

The European association of goose with the saint's day has 
been variously explained. 

Sulpicius Severus, who lived at the beginning of the fifth 
century and who wrote a book on the life of St. Martin, says, 
" The feast of St. Martin is set for the 11th of November. This 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 665 

day the Christians observe by drinking and stuffing themselves 
with roast goose ; they do this, it is said, because a goose betrayed 
St. Martin by her cries while he was concealed in the stall ; others 
say that having eaten the whole of a goose at one meal he died 
from the effects of it. These are but legends, as the custom is 
traced to the people of the Northern countries, who are as fond 
of goose as we are of partridge." 

Another writer has it that it was and is customary among the 
clergy to prepare for fasting by feasting. About the middle of 
the fifth century Perpetuus, Bishop of Tours, ordered a fast to 
be observed three times a week from Martinmas to Christmas, 
and, as geese are supposed to be particularly fine eating at this 
time of the year, the goose came to be the bird of the day. 

A third legend relates that a goose so sadly disturbed St. Mar- 
tin, when he was preaching, that he retired to a cave to be out 
of the goose's way ; but even there the bird pursued him ; and 
finally the saint made a too hearty dinner of goose, which proved 
his death. The association is so firmly established that on Mar- 
tinmas in some parts of France no one dares to drive his geese 
to pasture, as the goose is then common property and every one 
may help himself 

If you have roast goose at Martinmas you must ask St. 
Martin to dine with you, otherwise the goose may not be foi th- 
coming in the following year. There is a superstition that if 
the farmer has not finished his field-work by Martinmas he will 
bury his wife before the winter is over. 

In France it was for a long time the custom to hang up a goat 
by the legs and then slowly torture it to death. Clearly this 
was a survival of an ancient pagan practice. 

On Martinmas the first new wine was tasted, and this often gave 
rise to carousals and drunken feasting, so that poor St. Martin 
soon came to be in bad repute, and any one who was particularly 
given to dissipation was called a " Martinsman." 

The French call feasting at this time of 3 ear " faire le Saint- 
Martin," and a spoiled stomach is known as " mal de Saint- 
Martin." 

In Germany the proverb says that 

The hog that's killed at Martinmas 
Must be eat up by Candlemas. 

This is quite the reverse of another old proverb, which warns 
people against using up more than half of their provisions before 
Candlemas (February 2), Martinmas being considered the begin- 
ning of winter and Candlemas about the middle of it. The 
French say, "A la Saint-Martin I'hiver en chemin." 

Before the Christian era the people of the North sacrificed to 



666 CURIOSITIES OF 

their god Odin, or Wodin, after the harvest, and the little cakes 
baked all over Germany on this day are in the shape of a horn 
or a horseshoe, one of the symbols of Wodin. 

Along ihe banks of the Ehine they build immense fires on the 
hill-tops, and when their red glow illumines the landscap*e all 
join hands and dance merrily in a circle around the fires, singing 
and shouting to their hearts' content. 

They have a pretty custom in Suabia of giving presents to the 
school-master on this day. About a week before Martinmas the 
older pupils begin secretly to collect gifts from the other chil- 
dren and their parents. When the day arrives the school-master 
is presented with a fine fat goose, gayly decked wdth ribbons. 
They also give him plenty of corn to feed it with, in addition to 
wine and grapes, and an immense cake in the form of a wreath, 
that is often three feet in diameter. In some places the children 
go about in the evening singing and soliciting gifts of apples, 
nuts, and cakes. When they are successful they rewai'd the 
giver by telling him that 

Martin is a good man, 
He'll repay you if he can. 

But when they receive nothing they cry, — 

Codfish, codfish, 

You always give us an empty dish. 

In Halle the children of the IIall6ren — men who work in the 
salt-mines there — firmly believe that St. Martin has the power to 
change water into wine. They therefore fill their jugs with 
water and kick them, singing, — 

Marline, Marline, 
Change Ihe water lo wine. 

The parents then secretly take the jugs, empty the water, and 
refill them with wine; then a martin's horn — a cake baked in 
the shape of a horn — is laid on top, and the jugs are returned to 
their hiding-places. The children, after having prayed to St. 
Martin, hunt for the jugs, and great is their satisfaction at find- 
ing that the good saint has answered their prayers. 

What Americans call Indian summer (^. v.) is in England 
known as St. Martin's summer, and in France as L'ete de Saint- 
Martin. 

But the most curious ceremonial practised in honor of St. 
Martin is at Dunkerque. A local legend thus explains it. About 
the year 386, St. Martin, on his travels through Gaul, happened 



I 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 667 

to arrive one evening at Diinkerque, or rather the spot where 
Dunkerque now stands. He was riding leisurely on donkey- 
back. Stopping at a little chapel near the Dunes, he left his ass 
waiting at the gates. There are doubts whether such a chapel 
existed then, but legends do not scruple at anachronistic details. 
St. Martin entered some chapel or house. While he was saying 
his prayers within-doors, the animal strayed away to search for 
the prickly eringo, or sea-holly, which had caused his mouth to 
water along the road. His master, missing him, begged the 
neighboring fishermen to lend their aid to recover him. The 
worthy fellows started at once, regardless of its being night : 
some, with resin torches in their hands ; some, with the lanterns 
belonging to their fishing-boats; while others blew the horn 
which still announces the arrival of a boat at the beach, and 
which may be made to give a not bad imitation of a donkey's 
bray when it tries to sing small. At last the gluttonous ass was 
found, and brought back to the village under the escort of a 
troop of children, who, as they travelled along the road, were 
treated, by St. Martin's intervention and the donkey's keep, with 
an unexpected supply of exquisite spice-bread. 

In modern times, on the evening of St. Martin's Day at Dun- 
kerque — and at Dunkerque only — the whole population claims 
the privilege of going mad from five o'clock till seven in com- 
memoration of the finding of St. Martin's ass. The next day, 
at the same hour, a second paroxysm returns ; and then the town 
remains sane for a twelvemonth. The professed actors in the 
farce are all the children of the place, little and big, boys and 
girls, from babies at the breast to overgrown boarding-school 
masters and misses. But as the youngsters do not turn out 
alone, and the old folks enjoy the fun as thoroughly as their 
juniors, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the whole city 
makes a good-natured fool of itself A writer in Household 
Words, vol. vii. p. 332, thus describes the scene : " Fancy the 
streets crowded with children, from three to a hundred and 
eighty months old, and every one of them carrying in his hand 
a paper lamp of some fashion. Flowers of all colors and shapes, 
churches, houses, and fantastical figures, are illuminated by a 
candle's-end that is stuck on a save-all at the extremity of a 
stick. The usual gas-lights are perfectly unnecessary ; for the 
rays sent forth by the thousands of lanterns produce a brilliant 
substitute ; and by way of musical accompaniment to the scene 
there are hundreds of penny trumpets, which are expressly pre- 
pared for this occasion only. 

" As soon as the juvenile orgy begins, no carriage is permitted 
to pass through the streets; nor could it, without committing a 
Juggernautian slaughter of innocents. The crowd, which eddies 



CURIOSITIES OF 

and flows in all directions, treads so closely and compactly on 
one another's heels that a pin could not fall to the ground be- 
tween them. It is one of the many things of which it may be 
truly observed that to be believed it must be seen and heard, 

" But as all the principal performers are children, and as 
children go to bed at an early hour, at seven o'clock the throng 
begins to thin ; at half-past seven it is thoroughly ashamed of 
itself; at eight the town is as sober as usual. The gas is lighted, 
the vehicles roll along, and the young rogues munch their cro- 
quandoules, or donkey-nuts, while they undress themselves and 
jump into bed." 

'' This country having no patron saint, a contributor to the 
Holy Gross Magazine, the organ of the extreme Catholic paity 
of the Episcopalians, suggests that the omission be supplied by 
the selection of St. Martin of Tours. 

" His reasons for the suggestion are the coincidence that the 
great festival in commemoration of St. Martin occurs on the 
Fourth of July, the anniversary of the transportation of the 
saint's remains, and the circumstance of ' his association with 
our national colors.' His ordination also is commemorated on 
the Fourth of July, and his relations to the French, with whose 
aid we conquered our independence, together with the distin- 
guishing qualities of his character, recommend him peculiarly to 
Americans, in the opinion of this writer. It is true that St. 
Martin was not an American, having lived more than a thousand 
years before the time of Columbus, but that does not constitute 
a vahd objection, to the thinking of the Ifoly Cross writer, ' since 
Wales, with St. David, is almost alone in possessing as patron a 
countryman.' If England has St. George of Cappadocia and 
Ireland St. Patrick of France, why, he asks, should not this 
country have St. Martin of Tours ? 

" The democratic simplicity of the life and the strength of the 
character of St. Martin, his independence, and his rugged virtues, 
seem to the Holy Cross Magazine writer to make him a very 
fitting and congenial patron saint for the American people. 
' Moreover, the bedesman supported by a royal French endow- 
ment wore, in commemoration of the saint, a mantle of red and 
white, while the cappa of St. Martin, before it was superseded 
by the oriflamme as the standard of France, was a blue banner 
of three points.' The variety of his experiences as soldier, ex- 
orcist, hermit, monk, and bishop seems also to this writer to be 
' a passport to the affections of a people whose avocations are apt 
to have nearly as wide a range.' St. Martin, too, appears to him 
especially qualified to be the patron saint of a country whose 
population is made up of so many nationalities, for, a Hungarian 
by birth, he was educated in Lonibardy, was a soldier in Cisal- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 669 

pine and Transalpine Gaul, a hermit near Genoa, and a bishop 
between Tours and Treves, a town which is now in Germany. 

"The suggestion is interesting, but so long as the present re- 
ligious disagreement between Eoman Catholics and Protesianis 
continues it is not likely to be adopted by popular consent, for 
of course there must be such consent if we are to have a patron 
saint generally acknowledged. Moreover, there will be strong 
objection to importing a saint for the purpose. This country is 
growing more and more patriotic, jingoistic, as the Mugwumps 
call it, more self-sufficient, and a patron saint not native to its 
soil and not associated with its history is not likely to appeal to 
popular sentiment." {New York Sun, July 7, 1896.) 

Martyrs for the Holy Scriptures. The 2d of January is 
specially set apart in the Eoman calendar to honor, under this 
name, the Christians throughout the Eoman provinces who, 
when Diocletian in 303 commanded all copies of the Scriptures 
to be seized and burned, chose rather to suffer tortures and death 
than to surrender the sacred writings to the enemies of God. 
This festival was in Catholic times observed with much ceremony 
in Lichfield, England, whose very name is derived from Like- 
field, the " field of corpses," because it is traditionally held that 
many Christians suffered there during the Diocletian persecution. 
The arms of Lichfield are a plain strewn with corpses. History, 
however, is silent on this event. 

Mary Magdalene, St. (so called because she was a native 
of Magdala, in Galilee), patroness of Provence and Marseilles, 
and of penitent fallen women. Her festival is celebrated on July 
22, the traditionary date of her death. 

Catholic legend has insisted on identifying as one person Mary 
of Bethany (the sister of Lazarus), the unnamed " woman which 
was a sinner" who in Simon's house anointed Christ's feet (Luke 
vii. 37, 38), and " Mary called Magdalene," who was delivered by 
our Lord of seven demons (Luke viii. 2) and thereafter followed 
him from place to place, was present at the crucifixion (John 
xix. 25) and the burial (Mark. xv. 47), came on Easter morning 
with other women to embalm his body (Mark xvi. 1), and, find- 
ing the tomb empty, informed Peter and John, but lingered after 
they had gone, and was honored with the first appearance of the 
risen Lord (John xx. 1-18). Modern Biblical critics generally 
look upon these as three different individuals, and few Catholic 
theologians accept the identity of Mary of Magdala and Mary 
of Bethany, though they generally lean to the opinion that the 
former was one with the penitent woman of Luke vii. 

The ancient legends, however, are insistent in their details. 



670 CURIOSITIES OF 

The Magdalene with them was the sister of Lazarus and Martha 
of Eethany. Martha was virtuous, but Mary, giving herself up 
to vice, came to be known to all as "the Sinner." Martha in 
pitiful distress begged her to call on Jesus. Mary obeyed, was 
stricken with penitence, and was forgiven, the seven demons cast 
out of her being the seven deadly sins to which she had become 
a slave. After the Ascension the legend tells how Lazarus and 
his sisters and many of their friends were placed by their per- 
secutors in an open boat, rudderless and sailless, which was 
miraculously landed at Marseilles (see Maries, the Three), and 
how most of the little company dispersed to preach the gospel 
throughout Provence. But Mary decided to retire into the wil- 
derness, to bewail her sins in solitude. While wandering in the 
I'orest known as la foret de la Baume, or forest of the cavern, a 
few miles from Marseilles, a flock of angels swooped down and 
carried her to the cave high up in an inaccessible rock. Here, 
with only her hair to hide her nakedness, and a psalter and a 
crucifix for furniture, she lived for thirty years. When she felt 
the approach of death, her old friends the angels flew with her 
to St. Maximin's oratory. He had just time to give her the last 
sacraments when she breathed her last, and her soul was seen 
to fly up to heaven in the form of a dove, July 22, a.d. 86. As 
to her body, Maximin placed it in a fine marble sepulchre and 
built over it a church. 

Church and sepulchre passed away. In the thirteenth cen- 
tury a lot of bones supposed to be the remains of the Magdalene 
and others of her band were found at the little town of St. Max- 
imin. On this spot was built in 1279 the basilica of St. Maximin, 
which still possesses a blackened skull encased in gold, shown as 
the Magdalene's, and also a pair of rude sarcophagi in its very 
ancient crypt, which are held to be those of ihe saint and her 
maid Marcilla. But another body of the Magdalene, supported 
by another legend, was shown as early as 1146 at Yezelay, which 
according to Fleury was visited by St. Louis in 1267. A third 
body now in St. John Lateran's at Rome, and a third legend, 
complicate matters considerably. This legend makes the Mag- 
dalene accompany John and the Yirgin to Ephesus, where she 
died and was buried in the year 90. In 869 her remains were 
translated to Constantinople, and in 1216 to Eome. 

The chief shrine, however, of the repentant Magdalene is La 
Sainte Baume, the Holy Cave, in which, according to the Pro- 
vencal legend, she spent thirty years. No spot was more famous 
in the Middle Ages. There were few kings of France from St. 
Louis to Louis XIY. who did not visit it and enrich it. Even in 
our own time some fifteen thousand pilgrims come here every 
year. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 671 

The Dominican convent is practically the only inn in those 
parts, and every visitor has to put up with the severely plain 
accommodation provided by a monastic cell and simple but clean 
food. 

The convent contains about one hundred beds ; the lady vis- 
itors are served by nuns, the gentlemen by monks. The convent, 
v(;^hich looks almost as ancient as the grotto, is situated on the 
edge of a vast rocky chain of hills, and almost opposite the 
monastery, half-way up the steep incline, is the famous grotto 
cut into the solid rock. There a wide platform is hewn out, 
partly occupied at present by a second convent. 

The grotto is about twenty-five yards square, eight yards high, 
and, to all intents and purposes, a chapel. The principal altar 
is surmounted by a fine statue representing Mary Magdalene 
praying. 

Matze. A large round biscuit made of unleavened flour which 
the orthodox Jew eats during the sacred season of the Passover 
(c[. v.). In chapters xii. and xiii. of Exodus the manner of cele- 
bration on the first night of the feast is partly told, and there it 
is commanded that unleavened bread be eaten on the first night 
and no leaven be kept in the house at any time during the week. 
This is in remembrance of the fact that the Jews in their hurry 
to leave Egypt were forced to take along unleavened bread, 
which they had to bake in the sun. In Europe, when they 
happen to have any bread or other sort of leaven in the house 
the housewife locks the pantry and hands over the key to some 
old Christian friend of hers to keep till the feast is over. 

The flour from which the dough is made is ground in a mill 
by Jews, and is from wheat which has been selected with the 
greatest care. Especial pains are taken to prevent any impurity 
from getting into the wheat. The flour is then placed in clean, 
new barrels, selected expressly for this purpose. 

When the work of manufacturing matzes is begun, two men 
knead the dough in w^ooden dishes, while another brings the 
flour, and still another the water, from opposite corners. One 
man ladles the flour from a bin into a wooden dough -tray, and 
another, after a short interval, pours a cup of water into the tray. 

Two men are always employed at this work, for if only one 
were at work some of the flour might get into the water, or the 
reverse. This would make the flour sour and spoil all. 

The greatest caution is exercised regarding the water, w^hich 
must be free from all impurities. In order to have it so, it is 
carried in the previous evening and allowed to settle. When it 
is being used, the utmost care is taken, so as not to stir it and 
thus cause the impurities to rise from the bottom of the vessel. 



672 CURIOSITIES OF 

Like pains are taken when the dough is being prepared, in 
order that it may be free from all impurity. It is kneaded hard 
into a big roll, which weighs ten pounds. After this it is cut in 
pieces by a man specially engaged for the purpose, and is then 
carried to the women by another man. The women take the 
pieces and roll the dough flat. IS'ext this flat piece of dough is 
rolled over two sets of wheels, which make diamond-like impres- 
sions on the cakes. Then they are baked. 

The latter process can be done only in daylight, work begin- 
ning at sunrise and ending at sunset. After the work of pre- 
paring the matzes for the oven, a man removes all specks of dough 
from the rolling-pins with sandpaper and glass. 

These matzes are always ordered in advance, but are not de- 
livered until the homes into which they go have undergone a 
thorough cleaning and after every crumb of leavened bread has 
been taken from the apartments. If they should, by some mis- 
chance, come in contact with ordinary bread, it would render the 
matzes unfit for use in the festival. 

For the very devout among the Hebrews a special matze is 
baked. This comes much higher than the other varieties, cost- 
ing eight or ten times as much. 

Maundy or Shere Thursday, known in the Catholic eccle- 
siastical calendar as Holy Thursday. The day before Good 
Friday, commemorating Christ's Last Supper, and also, both in 
the Greek and in the Western Church, his washing of the dis- 
ciples' feet on that day. The word Maundy comes through old 
French mande from the Latin mandatum, "a command," the ref- 
erence being to the words of Christ in his discourse at the Last 
Supper : " Mandatum novum do vobis, ut diligatis invicem" ('• A 
new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another"). 
(John xiii. 34.) The word sheer, shere, or chare comes from the 
Middle English shere or sheere, meaning " pure," " unalloyed," 
"clear," (still surviving with a modified meaning in sheer), and 
is an allusion to the physical purity acquired by the ablutions 
of the day. 

In the early Christian ages the chief religious rite performed 
on this day was the washing of the feet of poor persons or 
inferiors by a priest, prelate, noble, or sovereign. The custom 
still has its local survivals both in the Roman and in the Greek 
Church. In the former the most notable instances are at Rome 
itself, at Yienna, and at Munich. In the second, ecclesiastical 
dignitaries perform it at Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Constanti- 
nople. In the Anglican Church the custom has been obsolete 
since 1754. 

Naogeorgus, in "The Popish Kingdom," alludes to the univer- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



673 



sality of the feet-washing ceremonies in mediaeval monasteries. 
This is Barnaby Googe's translation : 

And here the monkes their Maundie make, with sundrie solemne rights, 
And signes of great humilitie, and wondrous pleasant sights : 
Ech one the others feete doth wash, and wipe them cleane and drie, 
With hatefull minde, and secret frawde, that in their heartes doth lye. 

In England high ecclesiastics and royalty itself unbent to this 
imitation of Christ's humility. At Durham Cathedral until the 
sixteenth century every charity-boy had a monk to wash his 
feet, and every monk then kissed the feet of a boy, and gave him 
thirty pence, seven red herrings, three loaves, a wafer cake, and 
some drink. 




Washing the Pilgrims^ Feet in Rome. 
(From Picart.) 

We read of Cardinal Wolsey, at Peterborough Abbey, in 1530, 
making " his maund in Our Lady's Chapel, having fifty-nine poor 
men whose feet he washed and kissed ; and after he had wiped 
them he gave every of the said poor men twelve pence in money, 
three ells of good canvas to make them shirts, a pair of new 
shoes, a cast of red herrings, and three white herrings." The 
King of England used formerly, on Maundy Thursday, to have 
brought before him as many poor men as he was years old. 
whose feet he washed with his own hands, and then distributed 

43 



674 CURIOSITIES OF 

meat, clothes, and money. Queen Elizabeth performed this 
ceremony, the paupers' feet, however, being first washed by the 
yeomen of the laundry with warm water and sweet herbs. After 
washing each foot, the queen marked it with the sign of the 
cross above the toes and kissed it. This ceremonial was last 
performed in its full extent by James II. King William left 
the washing to his almoner, and such was the arrangement for 
many years : for example, in 1731 we read of the Archbishop 
of York, lord high almoner, washing the feet of a number of 
poor people. Latterly the feet-washing has been abandoned, and 
an additional sum of money has been given in lieu of provisions 
and clothing. 

Since the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign it has been an 
established rule to present to twice as many aged and deserving 
poor men and women as there are years in her majesty's life 
a donation in money known as the Maundy Pennies. A special 
service, formerly held at the Chapel Eoyal, Whitehall, has since 
the abolition of that chapel been transferred to Westminster 
Abbey. A procession is formed in the nave, consisting of the 
lord high almoner, representing her majesty, attended by his 
of&cials, the yeomen of the guard, and the clergy of the Abbey. 
During the course of the service two distributions of alms are 
made to a company of old men and women, the number of each 
sex corresponding to the age of the sovereign. The prescribed 
minimum of age is sixty years. The first distribution in lieu of 
clothing consists of thirty-five shillings to each woman and forty- 
five shillings to each man. The second distribution is of red and 
white purses, the red containing one pound, and one pound ten 
shilhngs, in gold, — an allowance in lieu of provisions formerly 
given in kind. The white purses contain as many pence as her 
majesty is years of age, the amount being furnished in silver 
pennies, twopences, threepences, and fourpences. These purses 
are carried in baskets on the heads of the yeomen of the guard 
in procession, and then distributed by the lord high almoner. 
Some of the officials wear white scarves, in memory of the linen 
towel with which our Lord girded himself when he stooped to 
perform his lowly act of washing his followers' feet. 

The Maundy pennies were first coined in the reign of Charles 
IL They come to the recipients fresh from the mint. Each coin 
bears on one side the ef^gy of the queen, with her name and 
titles, and on the other the denomination of the coin, the crown, 
and the date, enclosed in a wreath. The edges of the coin are 
not milled, as it is not expected that they will circulate, and the 
precaution of milling against the coin-clippers is unnecessary. 
A full set of Maundy pennies for the reign of Victoria is worth 
a very handsome sum. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 675 

What are known as the minor bounty, discretionary bounty, 
and Eoyal Gate alms are, according to old usages, distributed at 
the Eoyal Almonry, Craig's Court, on the preceding Saturday, 
Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, to over one thousand aged, dis- 
abled, and meritorious poor of both sexes, recommended to the 
Almonry by the clergy of the selected parishes of England and 
Wales. 

While this modified and modernized form of the ancient rites 
of Maundy Thursday takes place in Westminster Abbey, the 
Eoman Catholic cardinal archbishop observes the full ritual of 
the Catholic Church at the pro-cathedral. Clothed in his epis- 
copal robes, he himself washes the feet of thirteen acolytes 
garbed in white. The prelate, kneeling before each, pours out 
the water, and then wipes it away with a linen cloth. 

The Footwashings celebrated at Vienna by the Emperor of 
Austria and at Munich by the King of Bavaria are held in the 
royal palaces of the respective sovereigns. Here is a description 
of the former by an eye-witness : 

" Shortly after ten o'clock the floor began to fill with score 
upon score of officers in full uniform, from the different regiments 
of the kingdom, making a brilliant and imposing scene. In the 
assemblage were many of the most distinguished members of the 
Austro-Hungarian court, including ministers of state, archdukes, 
generals of infantry and cavalry, and vice-admirals of the war- 
fleet. Chatting with officers in gold-embroidered blue and scarlet 
uniforms were knights of Malta with white cross on sleeve and 
breast, Hungarians with high yellow boots and a leopard's skin 
thrown over the left shoulder, and in marked contrast to these 
the Polish aristocrats in flowing robes of black mourning for 
their lost kingdom. In the royal box above were the ladies of 
the court. At half-past ten the clergy entered the room, followed 
by the twelve oldest poor men of Vienna (for whom the service 
is performed), dressed in old German costume, — black, with 
white cape collars and knee-breeches. 

" Many of the aged men were quite feeble, and were assisted 
to their chairs by their relatives, who stood behind them during 
the service. Earlier in the morning the Emperor, Francis Joseph 
I., accompanied by his suite, attended high mass in the royal 
chapel, and upon his return entered the hall, followed by his 
cousin, nephews, and a large cortege. The Emperor wore the 
uniform of a general of infantry, and took his place at once at 
the head of the table, making the number thirteen, while in the 
rear stood thirteen of his body-guard. Then appeared from an 
anteroom twelve of the nobility, each carrying a tray containing 
the first course of a feast to be served to the Kaiser's guests. 
The dishes were all placed upon the table by the Emperor him- 



676 CURIOSITIES OF 

self, but no sooner had he done this than, with the assistance of 
his brother and the archdukes, he replaced them upon trays held 
by the thirteen guards, who removed them. It seemed a little 
hard on the old men to see the tempting viands so quickly taken 
away, but we learned later that each one received at his home 
the food and dishes as well, which were made for this occasion, 
as it had been found that the dinner was much more enjoyed in 
this way than before such a grand assemblage. The repast was 
beautifully prepared and handsomely garnished, served in four 
courses, each presented and removed in the manner described, 
after which the tables were taken away. 

" Footmen then removed the shoes and stockings from the old 
men and spread over their knees a long white linen roll, after 
which the chaplain began the G-ospel for the day. At the words 
'et coepit lavare pedes discipulorum' the Emperor knelt and 
began the ceremony of the ' foot-washing,' one prelate holding a 
basin while another poured the water. The Emperor continued 
kneeling until he had performed this service of humility for each 
of the twelve, after which he took from a salver silken bags, each 
containing thirty pieces of silver, and hung one about the neck 
of each of the old men. This ended the service; but we lingered 
long enough to see these honored guests assisted to the royal 
carriages to be sent home in the care of members of the Kaiser's 
body-guard, carrying the sizable wooden chest of provisions and 
a large flask of wine. When the Empress is at home she performs 
a similar service for the twelve oldest poor women of Vienna, but 
in case she is not, as happened this year, they are not present at 
the ceremonial, but receive at their homes an equal share of the 
royal bounty. It is not uncommon later to find these royal gifts 
in an antiquarian's shop, — the original recipients frequently de- 
siring the florins they will bring more than the distinction of 
possessing the gifts themselves. 

" The men and women who can count more than one hundred 
years are annually included in this royal invitation, but the 
majority of them receive this honor but once. This year the 
oldest was ninety-six and the youngest eighty-eight 3'ears of 
age." (Correspondence of the Springfield Republican, April, 1895.) 

The feet of thirteen pilgrims used to be washed by the Pope. 
They were chosen from among visiting priests and deacons of 
diverse nationalities. The ceremony was performed in the right 
corner of the transept of St. Peter's. The Pope washed succes- 
sively the right foot of each of the pilgrims, which he dried and 
kissed. Then he gave to each a bouquet of fresh flowers. He 
then made ready to celebrate the ceremony of the Cena, or Sup- 
per, which took place in the large hall just below the vestibule 
of the basilica. The thirteen "apostles," all dressed in white, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 677 

silently ranged themselves around a table covered with cloth of 
gold and decorated with flowers. 

Soon His Holiness appeared, surrounded by distinguished 
guests, and escorted by the ]^oble Guards. Amid these brilliant 
uniforms and variegated costumes the Pope's vestments were 
distinguished by their extreme simplicity. A prelate of his 
household presented him a linen apron embroidered with lace, 
and held up to him a vermilion basin from which the Pope poured 
water on the hands of the apostles. 

After the table had been blessed by His Holiness the dishes 
were brought by prelates who came in single file and kneeling 
handed them to the Pope. He in turn placed them in front of 
each of the " apostles," and poured wine and water into their 
glasses. Then His Holiness retired, and the apostles, having 
eaten and drunk their fill, swept the remains of the feast off' from 
the table into huge valises. Frequently the contagion spread to 
the spectators, who brushed past the guards and gleaned the har- 
vest-field for relics, if only a leaf or a flower. 

This ceremony has been discontinued for many years. But 
the washing of pilgrims' feet by prelates and by the nobility is 
still performed in various other churches and monasteries. 

Another time-honored custom is still celebrated in the after- 
noon of Maundy Thursday. The Cardinal Grand Penitentiary 
appears at his post near the pillar of St. Yeronica, where he is 
met by the Minor Penitentiaries. He doff's his cardinal's hat 
and assumes the beretta. A long rod is brought him, with which 
he lightly raps the heads of the different prelates of his suite 
and all other penitents who press forward to gain the indul- 
gence of one hundred days which is attached to this act of 
humility. (See Lavanda.) 

The feebleness and failing health of Leo XIII. compel him to 
select a deputy for the task he has accomplished so many years, 
but nothing is changed in the ceremonial observed in the palace 
of Madrid, where the chapel is filled by the most exalted pei'sons 
and the dignitaries of court and state, all, like the queen, arrayed 
in full court costume. Everybody goes to church on this day, 
and to as many churches as possible. The fact that all carriages 
and vehicles are forbidden to pass through the streets of Madrid 
on Holy Thursday adds a picturesque element to this function, 
as for that day alone from dawn to dusk may be seen women in 
gala dress and men in brilliant uniforms coruscating with daz- 
zling orders picking their way on the pavement from church 
to church, and investing a mass in one at least and an Ave and 
a Pater Noster in the others. 

A silence like that of Venice falls on the rattling capital. With 
three hundred thousand people in the street, the town seems 



678 CURIOSITIES OF 

still. In 1870 a free-thinking cabman dared to drive up the Calle 
Alcala. He was dragged from his box and beaten half to death 
by the chastened mourners, who yelled as they kicked and cuffed 
him, '' Que bruto ! He will wake our Jesus." 

Dr. Clarke, author of "Travels in Eussia" (1810), gives a de- 
scription of the Maundy Thursday festivities as practised by the 
Archbishop of Moscow, which is as true of the present day as 
it was of his own time : 

" The second grand ceremony of this season takes place on 
Thursday before Easter, at noon, when the Archbishop of Mos- 
cow washes the feet of the apostles. This we also witnessed. 
The priests appeared in their most gorgeous apparel: Twelve 
monks, designed to represent the twelve apostles, were placed 
in a semicircle before the archbishop. The ceremony is per- 
formed in the cathedral, which is crowded with spectators. 
The archbishop, performing all and much more than is related 
of our Saviour in the thirteenth'chapter of St. John, takes off 
his robes, girds up his loins with a towel, and proceeds to wash 
the feet of them all, until he comes to the representative of St. 
Peter, who rises, and the same interlocution takes place as be- 
tween our Saviour and that apostle." (Yol. i. p. 55.) 

In a court in front of the church of the Holy Sepulchre the 
Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem annually washes the feet of twelve 
of his bishops. It is one of the great sights of the Holy City. 
Frank G. Carpenter, who witnessed it in 1889, has presented us 
with an excellent description. In the centre of the court, he says, 
stood an oval rostrum, about four feet above the stones. Around 
its floor ran an iron railing enclosing a space about eight feet 
wide and twelve feet long. Inside the railing and running around 
it were seats, and at the back was a gold-and-white arm-chair 
cushioned with red satin. This stage was for the ceremony, and 
the chair was the stone of the patriarch. The other seats were 
for the bishops. When all had taken their places, a priest brought 
to the rostrum a large golden pitcher in a basin of gold as large 
as a foot-bath, and placed it in front of the patriarch. 

All rose amid solemn prayer. The patriarch divested himself 
of his grand gown and stood forth in a white silk robe girt with 
a gold and white girdle. He twisted a long Turkish bath -towel 
about his loins, and then, stooping over, poured the water from 
the gold pitcher into the basin. "The twelve bishops, in the 
mean time, were busy getting their feet out of their English 
congress gaiters and in pulling their white cotton socks off for the 
washing. Each has one foot bare as the patriarch comes around 
with the basin, and each holds out his bare foot to be washed. 
This the patriarch does very quickly, rubbing the foot with water 
and drying it with a towel. As he finished he bent over and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 679 

kissed the foot he had washed, and then went on to the next apos- 
tle. The last bishop represented St. Peter, and, after the ex- 
ample of Peter of the past, he objected to having his feet washed 
by his Lord ; he rose and gesticulated violently, but the patriarch 
opened the Bible and read to him the admonition which Christ 
made to Peter; he shook his hand at Peter as he did so, and 
a moment later Peter sat down humbly and submitted to the 
washing. 

" At this moment the bells of the Greek churches all over 
Jerusalem burst out in a chorus of rejoicing. The patriarch 
descended, the bishops followed, and in double file they marched 
out through the crowd, with the kavasses clearing the way. As 
they did so, a priest carried a vase of the holy water in which 
the feet had been washed, in front of the patriarch, and into this 
His Blessedness dipped a great bouquet of roses and sprinkled 
the water over the crowd. The people held their faces up to 
catch the purifying rain, and they rushed to the platform and 
wiped up the drops that had fallen on the floor, with their hand- 
kerchiefs, passing them over their faces." 

Maurice, St., patron saint of Austria, Savoy, Mantua, and 
of foot-soldiers. His festival is celebrated September 22. The 
legend of St. Maurice and the Theban legion is one of the most 
ancient of all the legends of the saints. St. Maurice was the 
leader of the Theban legion, which was composed entirely of 
Christians. When the Emperor Maximian was about to enter 
Gaul, lie ordered a general sacrifice to the gods, and made known 
that the purpose of his expedition was the extermination of the 
Christians. A part of the Theban legion had gone on in advance, 
but the section that remained refused to sacrifice, and was deci- 
mated by order of the Emperor. At Cologne and other places 
many more who belonged to the Theban legion suffered martyr- 
dom. Savoy, Piedmont, and parts of Germany abound in these 
soldier saints. The name Maurice signifies a Moor, and as such 
he is represented in some pictures^ He is dressed in armor and 
bears a standard and a palm. In Italian pictures he bears a red 
cross on his breast, which is the badge of the Sardinian order of 
St. Maurice. The site of the martyrdom of St. Maurice is pointed 
out at Yeriolez, where a slab of stone is shown upon which the 
martyr is said to have knelt. Eelics such as the bones and 
blood of St. Maurice are preserved in the abbey church. Eelics 
of St. Maurice and his companions are shown throughout Swit- 
zerland. 

In Quimperle, in Lower Brittany, a famous festival called the 
Pardon des Oiseaux begins on St. Maurice's Day and is appro- 
priately celebrated in the forest of St. Maurice. It is essentially 



680 



CURIOSITIES OF 



1 



a bird festival, for all kinds of birds, not only" fowls, but orioles, 
woodpeckers, larks, and various woodland songsters, are brought 
in cages and purchased as presents by lovers for their sweet- 
hearts or by parents for their children. The day itself is sacred 
to reKgious observances, but the morrow, when national traits and 
customs inherited from pagan times have full play, is devoted to 
merrymaking, thus described in Harpefs Magazine for July, 
1875 : " Wrestling matches between the champions of villages 
or districts, and games established by long traditions, arouse the 
interest and passions of the assembled multitude to a pitch which 
prepares them for the dances, in which every one, of high or low 
degree, of character good, bad, or indifferent, joins without re- 
serve. The musicians, already well moistened, are placed in the 
centre of the arena, armed with the binion, or bagpipe, and bom- 
bardo, and with a barrel of cider within arm's-length. The 
music proceeds with an energy truly astonishing, and the dance 
goes round with ever-increasing vivacity. The variety of cos- 
tume and the enthusiastic performances of these pious baccha- 
nals render the scene very entertaining, and toward the close 
peculiar to a degree. ' L'on pent dire que le champ de la fete 
n'est lui-meme qu'un immense cabaret,' says a writer whose 
church predilections and strong advocacy of the/etes de pardon 
would lead him to avoid exaggeration. Notwithstanding the 
religious character of the festival, it often terminates in an orgy 
where scenes are enacted that will hardly bear allusion. ' Mais 
il n'en prouve pas moins la foi vive dont le Bas-Breton est anime,' 
says another writer." 

May. This month ranked second in the old Alban calendar, 
thirds in that of Komulus, fifth in that of Numa. In the first- 




May. Watching Sheep. 

named calendar it was twenty-two days in length, thirty one in 
that of Romulus, thirty in that of l^uma, and thirty -one again 
in that of Julius Caesar. The name of this month is supposed 
by some to have come from Maia, the mother of the god Hermes, 
or Mercury. This, however, is based solely on the similarity of 
the two words, and the name of May was much more probably 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 681 

given in honor of the Majores or Maiores, the original Eoman 
Senate, as June was in honor of the Juniores, the lower branch 
of the Eoman legislature. The Saxons called this month Tri- 
Milchi, the improved condition of the pastures now enabling the 
cows to give milk thre6 times a day. 

In all ages there has been an antipathy to marrying in May. 
Eighteen centuries ago, Ovid wrote, — 

Nee viduse taedis eadem, nee virginis apta 
Tempera. Quae nupsit non diuturna fuit. 
Hae quoque de causa, si te proverbia tangunt, 
Mense malas maio nubere vulgus ait. 

On the morning of the marriage of Mary Queen of Scots to Both- 
well, on May 16, 1567, the last hne of the above quotation was 
found fixed upon the gates of Holyrood Palace. In the north 
of England there is an old proverb, — 

Marry in May, 
And rue the day. 

In Scotland they vary the wording, though retaining the same 
idea: 

Marry in May, 

Eue for aye. 

And, to give emphasis to the superstition, the same people as- 
sert, — 

From marriages in May 

All bairns die and decay. 

An old Scotch clergyman told his young congregation that 
" The girls are all stark mad that wed in May." Soothsayers 
predicted all manner of evil to those who defied the superstition. 
So we find it recorded that 

Married in May and kirked in green, 
Baith bride and groom \k)n't long be seen. 

In all soberness and sincerity we are told that women disobey- 
ing the rule would be childless; or, if they had children, the 
first-born would be an idiot or have some physical deformity ; or 
that the married couple would not live happily together in the 
new life, but would soon quarrel. Even Sir Walter Scott was 
not free from this fear, for wo read how he hurried away from 
London that his daughter's wedding might take place before the 
opening of the inauspicious month. 

May marriages are considered unlucky in France, and there 
is a common rhyme, — 



682 CURIOSITIES OF 

Si le commun peuple dit vrai, 
La mauvaise s'epouse en Mai. 

There is an old English proverb, " Who marries between the 
sickle and scythe will never thrive." Sir John Sinclair, in his 
" Statistical Account of Scotland," says, " That day of the week 
on which the 14th of May happens to fall is esteemed unlucky 
through all the remainder of the year ; none marry or begin any 
business upon it. None choose to marry in January or May, or 
to have their banns proclaimed in the end of one quarter of the 
year and to marry in the beginning of the next." 

May-Day. The First of May. In the Church calendar this 
is the combined day of St. Philip the Apostle and St. James the 
Less. Throughout Great Britain and to a lesser extent in France 
and Germany it was formerly celebrated with festivities which 
still have their local but much attenuated survivals. They are 
direct descendants of the ancient Eoman Floralia (q. v.), and of 
the Druidic feasts in honor of the god Bel, — the Apollo or Orus 
of other mythologies, the Baal of the Scriptures. But their re- 
moter ancestry must be found in the phalHc festivals of India and 
Egypt, which in those countries took place upon the sun's enter- 
ing Taurus, and celebrated the renewed fertility of nature. The 
Maypole itself is a phallic emblem, the word <pdUo^ meaning 
primarily " a pole," and in the precession of the equinoxes and 
the changes of the calendar we shall find an easy solution of 
any apparent inconsistencies arising from the difference of 
seasons. 

The Druids celebrated the feast of Bel on the Ist of May, by 
lighting immense fires in his honor upon the various cairns. 
Now, even to this day similar customs survive among the Irish 
and the Scotch Highlanders, — both remnants of the Celtic stock. 
Still more significant is the fact that the festival is known among 
them as Beltine or Bealtaine, — that is, " the day of Bel's fire ;" 
for in the Cornish (a Celtic dialect) the verb to tine means " to 
light the fire." 

Some of the rites of Moloch -worship still survive in several 
districts of the Scottish Highlands. These superstitions are 
receding before the invasion of the railway and the English 
tourist, but it is not so very long since the following customs 
might have been witnessed on May-Day even as far south as 
Perthshire. All the youths of a township or village met on the 
nearest moor. They cut a round table or altar in the green sod, 
and in the trench thus formed about the altar the whole com- 
pany stationed themselves. Here they kindled a fire and dressed 
a repast of eggs and milk, of the consistency of a custard. At 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 68B 

the same time they kneaded a cake of oatmeal, which they 
baked on the embers. After the custard was eaten they divided 
the cake into as many portions as there were persons in the 
company. One of these portions was blackened over with char- 
coal. Then all the pieces were thrown into a bonnet. The com- 
pany, blindfolded, drew out each a piece, the holder of the bonnet 
took the last bit, and the drawer of the black bit was made to 
leap three times through the flame of the bonfire. In the real 
Baal ceremony the person who took the blackened piece was 
literally sacrificed as 'a propitiatory offering to Baal for the pro- 
ductiveness of the ensuing autumn. 

The Irish still retain the Phoenician custom of lighting fires 
at short distances and making the cattle pass between them. 
Fathers, too, taking their children in their arms, jump or run 
through them, thus passing the latter as it were through the 
flames. This custom appears to have been only a substitute for 
the atrocious sacrifice of children practised by the elder Phoeni- 
cians, — that " abomination of the heathen" denounced in II. 
Kings xvi. 3. The god Saturn — that is, Moloch — was repre- 
sented by a statue bent slightly forward and so placed that the 
least weight was sufiicient to alter its position. Into the arms 
of this idol the priest gave the child to be sacrificed, when, its 
balance being thus destroyed, it flung, or rather dropped, the 
victim into a fiery furnace that blazed below. If other proofs 
were wanting of Eastern origin, we might find them in the fact 
that Britain was called by the earlier inhabitants the island of 
Beli, and that Bel had also the name of Hu, a word which we 
see again occurring in the Huli festival of India. (Dyer : British 
Popular Customs, p. 224.) 

If Druidism survives most obviously in the Celtic portions 
of the United Kingdom, it is Eoman paganism which has left 
its firmest traces upon the May -Day celebrations in the Anglo- 
Saxon regions. There the occasion is rather a feast of flowers 
than of sacrifices, a reminiscence of Flora rather than of Baal 
and Moloch. And curiously engrafted on Eoman paganism is 
Eoman Christianity. 

This latter fact is most evident in the May-dolls which, once 
common throughout England, are still paraded on May-Day in 
Devonshire, and may even be found in Cornwall and other parts 
of Wales. The May-doll is remotely a survival from the images 
of Flora which graced the Floralia, but more immediately from 
the figures of the Yirgin and her Son of Catholic times. In the 
latter light it may be looked upon as another form of the vessel- 
cup (q. v.). Mr. Ditchfield tells us that at Edlesborough, Buck- 
inghamshire, the girls dress up a doll, sometimes with a small 
doll in its lap, with many ribbons and flowers, and carry it about 



684 CURIOSITIES OF 

in a small chair. This in its origin was evidently intended as a 
representation of the Yirgin and Child. The parish church is 
dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, which seems to afford another 
link of association. A similar custom, almost defunct, prevails 
at Brightwalton, Berkshire, where the Virgin and Child in the 
guise of the Queen of the May with a doll in a basket are borne 
round the parish. 

Did the May-dolls suggest the Queen of the May, who, some- 
times with a consort, the King, presided over the May-Day fes- 
tivities until a comparatively recent period, not only in England, 
but also in certain portions of New York and l!^ew England ? 
The suggestion is plausible. Douce, however, holds the opinion 
that " the introduction of Eobin Hood into the celebration of 
May probably suggested the addition of a king or lord of May." 
If Eobin Hood was the original king, then his Maid Marian, 
who, with Friar Tuck, Little John, and other merry members 
of Eobin Hood's band, appeared in the same mummeries, was 
the original Queen of May. 

The date of the institution of May-games in England during 
the Middle Ages cannot be traced. A poem of the fourteenth 
century, " The Eomance of Kyng Alisaunder," says, — 

Mery time it is in May ; 
The foules syngeth her lay ; 
The knighttes loveth the tornay ; 
Maydens so dauncen and thay play. 

In " The Court of Love" (about 1450) we read, — 

Thus sange they alle the service of the feste, 

And that was done right early, to my dome [as I judged] ; 

And fourth goeth al the court, both moste and leste, 

To fetch the floures freshe, and braunche, and blome ; 

And namely [especially] hawthorn brought both page and grome, 

With fresh garlandes party blew and white ; 

And than rejoysen»in their grete delight, 

Eek eche at other threw the flowers bright, 

The primerose, the violete, and the gold [marigold]. 

This extract shows that the king and queen mingled with their 
subjects in these fine old English customs. Henry YIII. and 
Catherine of Aragon once came from their palace of Greenwich 
to meet the heads of the corporation of London, who had been 
into the woods of Kent to gather May. The custom seems to 
have been for people to go into the woods in the night, gather 
branches of trees, flowers, etc., and return with them at sunrise 
to decorate their houses. 

Other observances were gradually added. The May Queen 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 685 

was crowned and held one day's sway over her court, consisting 
of morris-dancers, of Robin Hood and his band, and generally 
of the villagers or townspeople. A pasteboard hobby-horse rid- 
den by a man was sent around among the spectators to collect 
contributions in a ladle stuck in its mouth. Everybody who 
wished to might dance around a Maypole. 

The Maypole was usually made of birch, and adorned with 
flowers and ribbons. In the villages it was often set up for the 
occasion on May-Day Eve, but in London and elsewhere there 
were Maypoles permanently standing in the streets. It was 
only natural that the May revels should invite the condemnation 
of the Puritans. (See Christmas.) Stubbes in his " Anatomy 
of Abuses" (1583) amiably characterized the Maypole as a 
" stinckyng idol" which the people bring from the woods, " fol- 
lowyng it with greate devotion." And when they have set it 
up they " leape and daunce aboute it, as the heathen people did 
at the dedication of their idolles." 

Maypoles were forbidden to be erected by the Roundhead 
Parliament in 1644 ; but they returned on the restoration of 
Charles II., and in 1661 the famous Maypole in the Strand was 
reared with much ceremony and rejoicing. This pole, which 
stood near where Catherine Street joins the Strand, was of cedar, 
and was raised by twelve seamen, commanded by the Duke of 
York, who was then Lord High Admiral of England. It was 
one hundred and thirty-four feet high. Pope thus alludes to it : 

Where the tall Maypole once o'erlooked the Strand. 

It was taken down about 1717, and purchased by Sir Isaac New- 
ton, who had it removed to Wanstead in Essex, to use as a sup- 
port to the great telescope (one hundred and twenty-four feet in 
length) which had been presented to the Royal Society by the 
French astronomer M. Hugon. 

In New England, as in Old, the Puritan attacked the Maypole. 
In 1630 Grovernor Endicott of Massachusetts marched a posse 
to Merrymount, where the profligate Morton had established a 
Maypole, hewed down the pole itself in God's name, and solemnly 
dubbed the place Mount Dagon, in memory of the Phihstine idol 
that fell before the ark of the Lord. 

In England the resuscitated May-Day games gradually fell 
out of fashion, and now they survive only in rural localities. In 
London the celebration was abandoned first to the milkmaids 
and then to the chimney-sweeps. From about the middle of the 
seventeenth century it grew to be the custom for milkmaids to 
dress themselves up in their best and call on all their customers, 
from whom they received some trifling gratuity. Later the 



686 CURIOSITIES OF 

chimney-sweeps made it a practice on the same day to parade 
the streets togged out in tawdry finery, ribbons, and green 
boughs. Hence the London name for the 1st of May is Sweeps' 
Day. " Jack-in-the-Green," with " Dusty Bob" and " Black Sal," 
the latter being usually a man dressed in woman's attire (prob- 
ably a relic of the milkmaids), would go dancing and capering 
through the streets, the centre of an admiring rabble. " Jack- 
in-the-Green" was a man enclosed in a bower made in the 
shape of a pyramid about ten feet high. Sweeps' Day is not 
yet entirely extinct in London. 

Mr. Ditchfield has made an interesting collection of May-Day 
survivals in rural England. He tells us that in Cheltenham the 
chimney-sweeps " hold high revels on May-Day. The dancers 
have their faces blacked, and their band consists of a fiddle and 
tin whistle. The centre of the group is formed by a large bush, 
or hollow cone bedecked with leaves, out of which peers the 
face of Jack-i'-the-Green. The dresses of the attendants are 
red, blue, and yellow, and they dance around the bush. The 
leader of the party is the clown, who wears a tall hat with a 
flapping crown, and a fantastical dress, and 'fancies himself 
greatly. There is also a man with a fool's cap, and black figures 
fastened on his white pinafore, and the representation of a grid- 
iron. Two boys complete the group, one wearing a girl's hat 
adorned with flowers. They levy contributions by holding out 
iron ladles or spoons, and strike the by-standers with bladders 
fastened to a stick. Their performance consists in dancing and 
roaring. The Cambridge sweeps evidently used to have a simi- 
lar festival, as the children still go round with a *doll, hung in 
the midst of a hoop wreathed with flowers, singing the ditty — 

" The first of May is garland day, 
And chimney-sweepers' dancing day ; 
Curl your locks as I do mine, 
One before and one behind. 

" In Hawick a few of the young people still go a-Maying, and 
rub their faces in the morning dew, whereby they secure twelve 
months of rosy cheeks; but year by year the number of the 
devotees of 'May Morning' are becoming less, and probably the 
next generation will know little of the secrets of how rosy 
cheeks were sought for on early May mornings, and perhaps 
seek less simple and wholesome ways for producing the much- 
desired bloom. 

" Mrs. Pepys knew the virtues of May-dew, as we gather from 
her husband's diary: ' My wife away to Woolwich in order to a 
little ayre, and to lie there to-night, and so to gather May-dew 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 687 

to-morrow morning, which Mrs. Turner hath taught her is the 
only thnig in the world to w^ash her face with.' " 

A writer in Once a Week for September 24, 1870, gives an 
account of the May-Day ceremonies celebrated in many a Cor- 
nish town. These include the carrying of May-dolls by the 
children and a local practice known as dipping. 

Early on May morning, he informs us, every one repairs to the 
country to pluck a sprig from the " narrow-leaf" elm-tree. This 
is worn in some conspicuous part of the dress. It is known as 
"May." It is not obligatory that the wearer should have gath- 
ered it himself: all that is insisted on is that it should actually 
have been gathered on May-Day, and that it is "narrow-leaf" 
elm. Should it be known to have been gathered the day before, 
it is indignantly torn from the wearer as being April-May. The 
broad-leaf elm is denounced as " horses'-May." April-May is a 
sham in the way of religion, and horses'-May is a blunder in 
botany. Each is punished by dipping. 

In many Cornish towns an open stream of water flows through 
the principal streets. As soon as the " May" has been secured, 
and breakfast hurried through, all the boys of the town assemble 
at this stream or "gutter,'* each being furnished with his "dip- 
ping-horn," which is thus manufactured : the point of a bullock's 
horn is sawn off, and the end of a stout stick, about four feet long, 
is firmly inserted into the aperture, which is made water-tight. 

Few of the inhabitants were so thoughtless as to appear with- 
out the correct May-Day sprig. Wayfarers happening into the 
town were the usual victims. 

As soon as a non-conformist appeared, whether inhabitant or 
stranger, male or female, the guardians of the rites shouted in 
chorus, and in tones not to be misinterpreted, " Ha'penny or a 
penny, or a good wet back ;" and, if the coppers of commutation 
were not instantly forthcoming, the unfortunate wayfarer was 
drenched without delay or mercy, and the baptism was merci- 
lessly continued until his or her greater speed had left the pitiless 
pursuers hopelessly behind. 

In Sweden May-Day is still celebrated in a manner derived 
from its heathen origin. On the previous evening huge bonfires 
are built in every hamlet, around which the young people dance, 
while the older ones draw various auguries from the appearance 
of the flames. On May-Day a sort of sham fight takes place 
between two parties, one representing Winter and the other 
Summer. Winter, however, always gets the worst of it in the 
end. He is buried in efligy, and ashes are strewn over the grave. 
This was formerly a custom in England also. The children on 
this day make a point of wandering into the woods for the pur- 
pose of robbing the nests of the magpies. The eggs and j'oung 



688 CURIOSITIES OF 

are put in a basket and borne to every house, the children sing- 
ing a song which runs thus : 

Best loves from Master and Madam Magpie, 
From all their eggs and all their fry. 
Oh, give them alms, if ever so small ! 
Else hens and chickens and eggs and all 
A prey to the magpies will surely fall. 

Every housewife gives them something for a May banquet. 
May-Day is really the only gala-daj^ of the Swedish children. 
On this day, also, the Easter witches are wont to send their 
" Troll hares" to suck the neighbors' cows. The cattle are usu- 
ally confined in the cow-houses, which are fumigated with brim- 
stone. In the evening they are carefully inspected ; and if any 
injury is found upon them it is put down to the account of the 
witches, and a light is made by striking two flints over the 
creature, which is held to be a sure preventive of any further 
evil consequences. (See Moving-Day.) 

Mayo, Dos de. (Sp., "the Second of May.") A national 
festival of the Spaniards commemorating the uprising of the 
citizens of Madrid against Murat. Murat had entered Madrid 
as commander-in-chief of the victorious French armies in Spain 
on March 25, 1808. On May 2 the citizens showed their de- 
testation of their conquerors by murdering all the isolated or 
wounded Frenchmen they could find. Murat put down the riot 
vigorously, but not cruelly, for only one hundred and fifty-eight 
Spaniards fell to five hundred Frenchmen. 

Every 2d of May the city of Madrid gives up the day to 
funeral honors to the dead of 1808. The city government, at- 
tended by its maceros, in their gorgeous robes of gold and scarlet, 
with silver maces and long white plumes, the public institutions 
of all grades, with invalids and veterans and charity children, 
and a large detachment of the army and navy, form a vast pro- 
cession at the town hall, and, headed by the Supreme Govern- 
ment, march to slow music through the Puerta del Sol and the 
spacious Alcala Street to the granite obelisk in the Prado which 
marks the resting-place of the patriot dead. Here mass is cele- 
brated, and then the Church leaves the field clear to the secular 
power. It is the only purely civic festival in Spain. 

Mayor's Day, Lord. In London the 9th of November, the 
feast of the inauguration of the mayor for the next twelve- 
month. A giant parade attends the newly elected official to the 
Law Courts, where he takes the oath of office. This pageant is 
colloquially known as the Lord Mayor's Show. All the streets 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 689 

are gayly decorated, especially on the line of march. At present 
the parade leaves the Guildhall at noon, and proceeds by way of 
Gresham and Princess Streets to the Mansion House; thence 
through Cornhill, Leadenhall Street, St. Mary's Avenue, Hounds- 
ditch, St. Paul's Churchyard, Ludgate Hill, and Fleet Street, to 
the royal courts of justice. Eeturning, the procession reaches 
the Guildhall by way of the Strand, Northumberland Avenue, 
Victoria Embankment, Queen Victoria Street, and King Street. 
The Lord Mayor's Dinner at the Guildhall concludes the fes- 
tivities of the day. The following account of the pageant as it 
looks in these days is from a letter by the London correspondent 
of the iVeiy York Tribune, dated Kovember 9, 1895 : 

" To-day's procession marked in nearly every detail the sur- 
vival of mediaeval customs and institutions. It was headed, 
after the mounted pohce and the Eoyal Artillery band, by repre- 
sentatives ol eight of the worshipful companies or guilds. First 
came the Makers of Playing Cards, with banners borne by 
horsemen representing the four knaves in costumes shown upon 
the earliest pack of cards which has been preserved. Then fol- 
lowed the Coach Makers and Coach Harness Makers, with their 
beadle and clerk on foot and their master and wardens in a four- 
horse coach. Behind them, in characteristic antique uniforms, 
were the Pattern Makers and the Farriers, with their banners 
flying and their officials in four-horse coaches. 'Next came the 
Fruiterers, with a car of mysterious symbolism, in which the 
forbidden tree and the serpent were conspicuous objects. The 
Barber Surgeons interposed a few feeble files of costumed men 
between the Fruiterers and the Leather Sellers, who appeared in 
stronger force, with a canopied car illustrating branches of the 
trade, conspicuous figures being a leather-shaver at his beam, a 
finisher graining, a shoemaker pegging at his last, and a harness- 
maker stitching at his saddle. Behind this hideous car, with its 
crocodile heads and festoons of hides, marched the Broiderers, 
with their ancient banners, arms, and standards. 

"These eight guilds were the companies with which the Lord 
Mayor and the Sheriffs were officiallj^ connected, and their pres- 
ence in the procession, wiih their banners and antique tunics and 
trappings, was a personal tribute to the three heroes of the civic 
pageant. Historically the representatives of the famous old 
companies belonged in this mediaeval exhibition, and their power 
as political and municipal agencies has survived generations of 
progressive government. 

" Besides the representatives of the worshipful companies, 
there were many other details of the Lord Mayor's Show which 
were of historical significance. The fire-brigades, perhaps, were 
not suggestive of old-time municipal life, especially as they ap- 

44 



690 CURIOSITIES OF 

peared with steam-engines and modern appliances, and with con- 
tingents recruited from twenty cities outside London; but the 
presence of the Epping Forest Keepers was a token that the 
corporation of London had preserved those beautiful woods; 
and the banners of Burnham Beeches, Highgate Woods, and 
Coulsdon Common had a message of similar import for those 
who could read it. Six Lord Mayors of different epochs ranging 
from 1406 to 1814 were represented by cavaliers in appropriate 
costumes, each with five attendants and an armor-bearer with 
standard. St. George on horseback followed these worthies, with 
nothing resembling a dragon close at hand, although the croco- 
diles had passed on the Leather Sellers' car, and a mysterious 
beast, unknown to any modern zoo, was to follow on the roof 
of the South Africa car. The warlike saint was accompanied by 
twelve mounted knights in armor, and two esquires, — familiar 
figures in mediaeval London. The India car, with Sir Thomas 
Smyth, the founder of the famous Company, and with a rajah in 
native costume, with soldiers in the uniform of the East India 
volunteers and with old-time merchants and other figures, sym- 
bolized the connection of the historic city with a great trading 
enterprise which involved the founding of an empire. The South 
Africa car was either a special tribute to the benevolence of the 
daring mining operator, Mr. Barnato, whose services in support- 
ing the market and incidentally aiding his own holdings had 
been commemorated two nights before by the outgoing Lord 
Mayor; or else it was an official attempt to identify the strong- 
holds of finance in the Old City with the most remarkable specu- 
lative bubble which has been blown since the days of Law. 

" But here at last are the banners of the Aldermen and the 
officers of the Corporation, with the band of the Duke of York's 
military school to announce with a flourish of trumpets the 
coming of the three heroes of the show. First in order is the 
glittering state carriage of Mr. Sheriff Cooper, drawn by four 
spirited horses, with footmen and coachmen in astonishing liveries 
of buckskin breeches, purple velvet tunics, heavy gold lace, and 
cocked hats. To moderate his pride in the grand equipage in 
which he is seated, and to teach him humility, the Sheriff has 
with him his worshipful chaplain. Behind him, in another 
splendid state coach drawn by four richly caparisoned horses 
and attended by coachmen and footmen in green and gold, is Mr. 
Sheriff Pound, with his pious chaplain. The Aldermen, who 
have not passed the chair, are preceded by state trumpeters of 
the Household Cavalry, and followed by the Eecorder and the 
former Lord Mayors. With one military band in front and 
another behind him, the retiring Lord Mayor, Sir Joseph Eenals, 
has his final hour of triumph with his liveried men above and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 691 

below. Then follow the city trumpeters, the mounted baud of 
the Eoyal Horse Guards, and the Lord Mayor himself, preceded 
by the Marshal and the servants, with liveries of ci-imson velvet 
richly embroidered in gold. The famous Cipriani gilt chariot, 
which has been seen once a year for a century on Lord Mayor's 
Day, has been oiled in the axles and varnished and gilded with- 
out ; but it sways and rumbles as it is drawn along by six horses, 
and seems destined on some unlucky 9th of November to meet 
the doom of sudden dissolution which finally overwhelmed Dr. 
Holmes's well-known vehicle. The Lord Mayor is inside, with 
scarlet cloak and gold collar, and the traditional. attendants are 
all in their places, — the sword-bearer, the mace-bearer, and the 
chaplain. Behind them is an escort of the Queen's Hussars, and 
the procession is at an end." 

Time was when the lord mayor went all the way to West- 
minster to be presented to the King, the Lord High Chancellor, 
and the Barons of the Exchequei-. At first he either rode or 
Walked there or went by boat with no great ceremony. It was 
Sir John Norman who in 1453 set the fashion of the Lord 
Mayor's Show by making the journey in a barge, with consider- 
able state and a large number of followers. Thereafter succeed- 
ing mayors vied with one another as to which should make the 
annual show grander and more impressive. A cavalcade through 
the streets of the city wound up with a procession of barges to 
Westminster. For a long time it was the custom to take part in 
the land parade on horseback. But it happened that, in the 
reign of Queen Anne, Sir Gilbert Heatbcote (the original of 
Addison's Sir Andrew FreejDort) was thrown into the gutter by 
his horse, a spectacle so unseemly that thereafter steps were 
taken to prevent its recurrence. Next year, 1712, a coach was 
provided for the use of the chief magistrate. In 1757 this was 
superseded by a gilded and elaborately decorated equipage built 
at a cost of £10,065, which remained in use until 1896. 

Once, it is related, a lord mayor ventured so far as to discard 
the coach, shrewdly suspicious, perhaps, that ridicule rather than 
respect attached to that magnificent but cumbrous vehicle. On 
this head, however, he was judged to be, for a lord mayor, too 
much in advance of the current of public opinion. His reform 
was accounted suicidal. It was perceived that if the state coach 
were to be driven to limbo, there was real danger lest the civic 
potentate himself should be constrained to be its inside passenger 
on that lethal journey. The fates of the man and the convey- 
ance were bound up together, and conterminate. If the laws 
of strict reason and common sense were to be invoked, then the 
mayor could be as easily dispensed with as his state coach. So 
the gilded carriage still wheezed westward every year, growing 



/ 



692 CURIOSITIES OF 

more and more uncomfortable and anachronistic, until in 1896 a 
new one was built. 

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the City Poet, 
appointed at a regular salary by the citizens of London (in order 
to be sure of his services whenever occasion might demand), was 
intrusted with the duty of preparing the pageants, of superin- 
tending their presentation, and of subsequently celebrating them 
in verse. The list of these poets ends with the name of Elka- 
nah Settle in 1708, after which time the printed descriptions 
cease. The earliest of these that has come down to us is that 
by George Peele, in 1585, when Sir Wolstan Dixie was installed. 
It would appear that a prominent feature of the early pageants 
was a number of little children appropriately dressed to repre- 
sent abstract qualities like Magnanimity and Loyalty and con- 
crete objects like the Thames, London, etc. These recited com- 
plimentary verses as the mayor passed, or gave him good advice. 
The quality of the poetry may be inferred from these lines put 
into the mouth of " one apparelled like a Moor:" 

This now remains, right honourable lord, 
That carefully you do attend and keep 
This lovely lady, rich and beautiful, 
The jewel wherewithal your sovereign queen 
Hath put your honour lovingly in trust, 
That you may add to London's dignity, 
And London's dignity may add to yours. 

The inventive faculty of the City Poet was especially taxed to 
make the pageants in some way representative of the individu- 
ality or the vocation of the mayor who was its raison d'etre. In 
1616, for example. Sir John Leman of the Fishmongers' Company 
was elected. The City Poet was Anthony Munday. He set his 
wits to work to good purpose. 

The first pageant was a fishing-boat, with fishermen " seriously 
at labour, drawing up their nets, laden with living fish, and 
bestowing them bountifully upon the people." These moving 
pageants were placed on stages, provided with wheels, which 
were concealed by drapery, the latter being painted to resemble 
the waves of the sea. This ship was followed by a crowned 
dolphin, in allusion to the mayor's arms, and those of the com- 
pany, in which dolphins appear ; and " because it is a fish inclined 
much by nature to musique, Arion, a famous musician and poet, 
rideth on his backe." Then followed the king of the Moors, 
attended by six tributary kings on horseback. They were suc- 
ceeded by " a lemon-tree richly laden with fruit and flowers," in 
punning allusion to the name of the mayor ; a fashion observed 
whenever the name allowed it to become practicable. Then came 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 693 

a bower adorned with the names and arms of all members of the 
Fishmongers' Company who had served the office of mayor ; with 
their great hero, Sir Wilham Walworth, inside ; an armed officer, 
with the head of Wat Tyler on one side, and the Genius of 
London, " a crowned angel with golden wings," on the other. 
Lastly came the grand pageant drawn by mermen and mer- 
maids, "memorizing London's great day of deliverance," when 
Tyler was slain ; on the top sat a victorious angel, and King 
Eichard was represented beneath, surrounded by impersonations 
of royal and kingly virtues. 

The great civil war and the triumph of Puritanism interrupted 
these pageantries for a period. The Eestoration brought them 
back in all their old-time splendor. In 1660 the principal feature 
was the Eoyal Oak, in compliment to Charles II., and thereafter 
humorous songs and merry interludes, suited to Cavalier tastes, 
enlivened the festivities. Another interregnum occurred when 
the quarrel broke out between King Charles and the city, which 
ended in the temporary abrogation of the city charter and the 
nomination of mayor and aldermen by the king. 

Hogarth has left on record probably the most vivid representa- 
tion of the show as it appeared in the early part of the eighteenth 
century. It is one of the series of " The Industrious and Idle 
Apprentice," a picture too well known to call for any detailed 
account ; but it is worthy of note that the locality chosen by this 
very faithful artist is the west end of Cbeapside, and that the 
balcony projecting from the house at the end of Paternoster Eow 
provided accommodations for Frederick, Prince of Wales, and 
the Princess Augusta. 

A famous contemporary of Hogarth's, no less a person than 
Alexander Pope himself, has in the first book of the " Dunciad" 
thus succinctly satirized a Lord Mayor's Show as presented by 
Elkanah Settle : 

'Twas on the day when * * rich and grave, 
Like Cymon, triumphed both on land and wave : 
(Pomps without guilt, of bloodless swords and maces, 
Grlad chains, warm furs, bi;oad banners, and broad faces :) 
Now night descending, the proud scene was o'er. 
But lived, in Settle's numbers, one day more. 

Mayors, Mock. In many English rural towns and districts 
these were formerly elected with burlesque ceremony, and in a 
few of them the custom still survives. Thus at a curious country 
fair, known locally as the Guild, and held in Eockland, Norfolk, 
on May 16, a " Mayor of the Guild" is elected, usually some half- 
witted fellow, who is clothed fantastically, pHed with liquor until 
he is drunk, and then chaired and carried through the parish. 



694 CURIOSITIES OF 

In Newbury, Berks, in a part of the town called specifically 
" the City," a " Mayor of the City," known also as " Mayor of 
Bartlemas," was until recently annually elected, together with a 
"Justice." The burlesque dignitaries, after an official banquet 
where bacon and beans formed the principal dish, headed a pro- 
cession through the streets. In lieu of a mace the " Mayor" 
carried a cabbage on a stick. St. Anne's Day (July 26) was for- 
merly the day of the election, but it was more recently changed 
to JS^oveniber 9, in compliment perhaps to the mayor of another 
city somewhat greater than that of Newbury. Though the cer- 
emony has been discontinued for a few years past, it is believed 
to be rather in a state of suspended animation than actually 
moribund. 

In Tenby, Wales, it was formerly the custom for the fisher- 
men, sometimes before and sometimes after Christmas, to confer 
upon one of their number the dignity of "the Lord Mayor of 
Pennyless Cove." Dressing him in a covering of evergreens, 
with a mask over his face, they would seat him in a chair and 
carry him around with flags flying and a couple of violins play- 
ing before him. In front of every house the mock mayor would 
address the occupants, wishing them a merry Christmas and a 
happy New Year. If his good wishes were responded to with 
money his followers would give three cheers, and he would him- 
self give thanks to an accompaniment of more cheers. 

Mayor's Sunday. The Sunday following the 9th of Novem- 
ber is so called in the English provincial towns. The newly 
elected mayor, clothed in his official robes of scarlet and ermine, 
then rides with his lady and with certain civic dignitaries from 
the town hall to the parish church through a mob of spectators 
who line the way. The party is escorted to the state pew in 
the church with a vast deal of ceremony. " It is, of course, in 
a manner, a special service. His Worship the Mayor, more than 
any man present, is the subject of the prayers and the butt of 
the sermon. The hundreds of men and women in the congrega- 
tion know it as well as himself. He cannot lift his eyes from 
his book without being reminded of it. Either the preacher in 
the pulpit is bending toward him and exhorting him and no one 
else, or the people are repeating Amen on his behalf or singing 
hymns which seem to have been composed solely to do him honor. 
Small wonder his lordship is relieved when the service is over and 
he may drive home in his crested coach." 

Mecca, Pilgrimage to. Mecca, in Arabia, the birthplace of 
Mohammed, is emphatically the holy city of the Moslem world. 
An annual pilgrimage called the Hajj takes place thither in the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 695 

last month of the Mohammedan calendar, hence known as Dhu'l 
Hajj, or Pilgrimage Month. As the Mohammedan year is a 
purely lunar one, with no intercalary month, and contains only 
three hundred and fifty four days, the Hajj in its annual returns 
makes the complete round of all the seasons. Every devout 
Moslem, wherever his habitation may be, is obhged to join in 
the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in his lifetime. He is then 
supposed to become as pure from sin as on the day when he was 
born, and gains for the rest of his life the honorable title Hajji. 
Besides this greater pilgrimage, Moslems of more than usual 
devotion may at any time perform an omra^ or individual pilgrim- 
age to the Holy City. 




The Kaaba. 
(From a sketch by Sir Richard Burton.) 

Mecca was a sacred spot long before the time of Mohammed. 
Lying on the great trade route from Southern Arabia and India, 
and possessing in its well Zemzem (q. v.) an inexhaustible supply 
of water, it early became a halting-place for the caravans and 
the seat of an annual fair. Once a year, in autumn, the pagan 
Arabs came in pilgrim guise to worship at the Holy House, 
known from its shape as the Kaaba, or Cube, which contained 
the famous black stone said to hiave fallen from heaven. As the 
latter may be an aerolite, science might endorse the traditional 
belief of a celestial origin. 

When Mecca, after a long and painful struggle, accepted the 
new religion, Mohammed adopted the Kaaba as the centre of 
religious worship, and turned to account the hoary traditions 
connected with the ancient city. Whether they then existed in 
the form now current, or whether they took that form through 
his teaching, the Arabs came to believe that Zemzem was a well 
miraculously created to quench the thirst of the perishing Ish- 



696 CURIOSITIES OF 

mael in the desert, and that the Kaaba was built by Abraham 
and Ishmael, to whom the archangel Gabriel presented the black 
stone, but that its worship had been perverted in the days of 
ignorance until at last Mohammed arose to restore the true re- 
ligion of Abraham and ihe prophets. 

Upon the potentate who for the time is accepted as the legit- 
imate successor of Mohammed devolves the duty of maintaining 
the Kaaba and of equipping a caravan to make the annual pil- 
grimage in an imposing manner. The Caliphs of Bagdad were 
wont to perform the journey in person at the head of enormous 
bands of the faithful. The Sultan of Turkey is at present the 
acknowledged Caliph, and head of the Moslem world. Though 
neither he nor his Ottoman predecessors have ever made the 
journey in person, the most imposing caravan to Mecca is that 
which starts from Constantinople, escorted by imperial troops 
under the command of a high Turkish official. Travelling all 
the way overland by Damascus and through the desert of Arabia, 
it collects various streams of pilgrims on its way. When to this 
vast caravan we add the smaller ones from all parts of the Mos- 
lem world, we get some idea of the number and varied nation- 
alities of the pilgrims and the pomp with which the great annual 
festival is celebrated. Nowadays, however, many of the devo- 
tees lessen the fatigues of the journey by availing themselves 
of steamboats for a portion of the way. But the nearest sea- 
port is Jiddah, some sixty-five miles from Mecca. Caravans, 
travelling very slowly, make the distance in two nights and a 
day. By the strict law of Islam, every believer on approaching 
the sacred city nmst assume the ihram, or pilgrim dress. This 
consists of two seamless pieces of white cloth, which may be 
of wool, cotton, or linen. One piece is wound round the loins, 
the other thrown over the neck and shoulders so as to leave the 
right arm partly bare. The pilgrim's head must be uncovered. 
If he does not walk barefooted, the instep of the foot must at 
least be bare. Female pilgrims wear a veil enveloping the whole 
figure. 

On reaching the city the pilgrim must at once proceed to the 
Kaaba. This is now enclosed in a large mosque. Though cubic 
in shape, as its name implies, the sides of the Kaaba are not 
of equal dimensions, the length being about forty-five feet, the 
breadth thirty, and the height forty. According to Arab au- 
thorities, one angle of the building points to the pole-star, so 
that the front or face would be the northeast wall. 

On first gaining sight of the Kaaba the pilgrim gives thanks 
for his safe arrival. He then passes under an insulated arch 
called Bab-el-Salam, reciting certain prescribed prayers, and so 
reaches the Kaaba. He finds his way to the eastern angle, in 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 697 

front of which he performs two rekas, and then kisses the black 
stone, or, if the crowd be too great, touches it with his fingers. 
The stone is a small, dark, shapeless mass, suggesting volcanic, 
or more probably meteoric, origin. Mohammedan tradition says 
that it was originally white, but was blackened by the kisses 
of sinful men. It was broken by fire in the siege of A-D. 683, 
and the pieces are kept together by a silver setting. According 
to Moslem myth, it was presented by the archangel Gabriel to 
Abraham. 

In fact, it was originally a fetich, the most venerated among a 
multitude of idols and sacred stones, which stood all round the 
sanctuary in pagan times and were destroyed with this one ex- 
ception hy Mohammed. The stone is built into the wall, about 
four feet nine inches from the ground. On the north side of the 
Kaaba are two slabs of verd antique which are believed to be 
the graves of Hagar and Ishmael and are appointed places for 
prayer. 

The pilgrim must make the circuit of the sacred cube seven 
times, stopping at the end of every round to kiss or touch the 
black stone. These circuits are called the tawaf, and are a relic 
of pre-Mohammedan paganism. On their conclusion he comes 
close up to the house, at the space between the black stone and 
the door (the Multazam), and here prays with outstretched 
arms and breast pressed against the wall. 

He next visits the Makam Ibraham, or standing stone of 
Abraham, whereon the patriarch rested his feet while building 
the Kaaba, leaving prints that are still visible. This is enclosed 
in a small building just outside the door to the left. 

Thence he goes to the well Zemzem, still farther to the left, 
where he recites more prayers and drinks of the sacred waters. 

Zemzem is a deep shaft enclosed in a massive vaulted building. 
According to the Mohammedans, this is the spring from which 
Hagar drew water for her son Ishmael. (See Genesis xvi. 14.) 
The water is drawn up by buckets, and is eagerly drunk by the 
pilgrims, or poured over the body. 

Every family in Mecca is anxious to use the water for re- 
ligious purposes, and it is exported in barrels, or carried home 
by the pilgrims for its supposed miraculous virtues. 

Not yet are the pilgrim's duties ended. Ho must walk seven 
times between Safa and Merwa, a distance of about six hundred 
paces, and on that or a succeeding day make a journey of an 
hour and a half to Omra. 

For all these ceremonies no stated day is fixed. They. are 
necessary incidents both of the great pilgrimage and of the pri- 
vate ones made in pursuance of a vow. But on the ninth day 
of the month Dhu'l Hajj, during the course of the great pilgrim- 



698 CURIOSITIES OF 

age, there occurs a ceremonial which is its distinguishing and 
indispensable feature. Without its observance no man is entitled 
to call himself a Hajji. This is the visit to Arafat, a bare emi- 
nence six miles out from Mecca. Here the pilgrims encamp 
over-night, and at the hour of afternoon prayer on the 9th they 
gather upon and around the hill, shouting " Labbeyka !" reciting 
prayers and texts, and listening to a sermon until nightfall. The 
sermon is usually delivered by the Kadi of Mecca, who stands 
on the side of the hill. 

Before sunrise next morning (the 10th) a second stand like 
that on Arafat is fhade for a short time around the mosque of 
Muzdalifa, but before the sun is fairly up all must be in motion 
for the village of Mina, four miles on the way back to Mecca. 
Here is celebrated the day of sacrifice, whose ceremonies are 
threefold : 

1st. Each pilgrim pelts with seven stones a cairn in West 
Mina. The stones are thrown in the name of Allah, and are 
generally thought to be directed at the devil. Mohammedans 
explain that when Adam returned from Arafat he met Satan in 
the valley of Mina. The latter attempted to bar his passage. 
But Adam, instructed by Gabriel, repelled him with stones. The 
fact is that stone-throwing is a rite older than Islam. It was 
performed during the annual pagan fair, and not unlikely is con- 
nected with the old Arab method of closing a sale by the pur- 
chaser throwing a stone. 

2d. The slaughter and sacrifice of animals, associated with the 
offering of Ishmael (not Isaac, say the Moslems) by Abraham. 
The victims are either sheep or goats. Every pilgrim who can 
afford it slays an animal, and on this day every^ Moslem through- 
out the world likewise offers up an animal in whatever place he 
may be. If the pilgrim be too poor, he must at some future 
time make up for the deficiency by fasting. The offerer consumes 
a portion of his victim, dries and salts other parts, and gives the 
remainder to the poorer pilgrims. 

3d. The shaving of the pilgrim and his resumption of ordi- 
nary dress, thus completing the Hajj. 

The pilgrim may, if he chooses, remain at Mina for three more 
days, which are devoted to a fair and a feast. No further cere- 
mony is enjoined on him, save that on the 11th and 12th he must 
repeat the stone-throwing practised on the 10th. 

If he remains in Mina, however, he will miss the ceremony of 
investing the Kaaba with its new covering, which occurs on the 
10th Dhu'l Hajj. This covering is a veil or drapery (kiswd) of 
black figured brocade, adorned with a broad band embroidered 
with golden inscriptions from the Koran. Every year a new 
covering is forwarded in the Sultan's caravan. The old covering 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 699 

is removed on the 25th of the preceding month and cut into 
pieces, which are sold as holy relics to the pilgrims. Thus for 
two weeks the Kaaba remains bare. (Phofessor James Eob- 
ERTSON, in Sunday Magazine, December, 1890.) 

Medard, St. (sometimes abridged to St. Mard) (457-545), 
French prelate. His festival is celebrated on June 8, the anni- 
versary of his death. He was Bishop of Yermand, and after- 
wards of JSToyon, the latter being his birthplace. He was a 
great friend of King Clotaire I. The latter was one of his 
pall-bearers. He had promised to build a new church at Soissons 
as a suitable monument to the saint. When the procession 
reached Crouy, which is about three miles from Soissons, the 
bier became wholly immovable. The king then promised to give 
half the borough of Crouy to the new church. On trying again 
to lift the bier, it was found that the half facing the part given 
to the church was loose and could be moved, but the other half 
was as fast as ever. Clotaire now promised the whole borough to 
the church. The bier instantly became so light that it could be 
lifted and carried without any trouble to its final destination. 
The church and abbey of St. Medard were built over the tomb, 
which is still a celebrated shrine. 

St. Medard is the St. Swithin — i.e., the rainy saint — of France. 
An old proverb says, — * 

S'il pleut le jour de Saint-Medard 
II pleut quarante jours plus tard. 

(" If it rains on the day of Saint-Medard 
It will rain forty days afterward.'') 

St. Medard's Day is still watched with anxiety in the rural dis- 
tricts of France. (See Eosiere.) 

Medina, Pilgrimage to. Medina, in Arabia, is, next to 
Mecca, the holiest city of the Moslem world. Thither Mohammed 
fled when Mecca disowned him. In its most important building, 
the Mosque of the Prophet, is still shown the tomb of Mohammed, 
as well as the tombs of his principal followers and of his daugh- 
ter Fatima. The European fable of the coffin of Mohammed 
suspended by magnets within the mausoleum is unknown to the 
Mohammedans. Indeed, it is not certain that either coffin or 
body has been preserved. The feeling which regards the tomb 
as the great glory of the mosque and as the central object of the 
pilgrimages does not seem to have sprung up until a century or 
more after the Prophet's death. But Mohammed left on record 
the saying that one prayer in the mosque is of more avail than 



700 CURIOSITIES OF 

a thousand in any other place except the Kaaba at Mecca. The 
great annual pilgrimage immediately follows that of the pil- 
grimage to Mecca ; but as it is not obligatory, and as the journey 
consumes eleven days, barely a fourth of those who visit Mecca 
during the month Dhu'l Hajj continue their devotions at Medina. 
Nor are the observances of the latter pilgrimage as fixed and 
elaborate as at the former. 

Mescal Ceremony. The Indian tribes of the Sierra Madre 
are accustomed to meet at regular intervals to eat the dried tops 
of the mescal plant with solemn religious ceremony of song, 
prayer, and ritual. The mescal plant is a small variety of cactus 
native to the lower Eio Grande region and about the Pecos Eiver 
in Eastern New Mexico. The local Mexican name for the plant 
is peyote, a corruption of the original Aztec name, from which it 
would seem that the plant and ceremony were known as far 
south as the Valley of Mexico at a period antedating the Span- 
ish conquest. Owing to its agreeably stimulating and medicinal 
properties, the Indians regard the plant as the vegetable incarna- 
tion of the Deity. 

Meshhed, Mashhad, or Meshed. (Per., " The Place of Mar- 
tyrdom.") The capital of Khorasaan in Persia, and the sacred 
city of the Shiite sect of Mohammedans, held in as much venera- 
tion by them as Mecca is by the Sunnite Moslems. It is visited 
every year by nearly one hundred thousand pilgrims, the chief 
attraction being the splendid mosque built over the tomb of 
Iman Riza, a follower of Ali, and one of the greatest saints in 
the Shiite calendar. A pilgrimage to this shrine gives to the 
pilgrim the coveted privilege of styling himself a Meshedi, just 
as a pilgrimage to Mecca imparts the title of Hajji. Moham- 
medans alone may enter the mosque ; even the outer gate is in- 
accessible to Christians and four-footed animals. Every pilgrim 
carries home with him a little tablet of stone or hardened clay 
made from the sacred soil of Meshed and inscribed with a text 
from the Koran. Thereafter, when he prostrates himself the 
orthodox five times a day towards Mecca, he places the little 
Meshedi tablet before him on the ground and touches his fore- 
head to that instead of to the commonplace soil of his native 
village. (A Visit to Holy Meshed, by Thomas Stevens, Cosmo- 
politan, February, 1889.) 

Michael, St. (His name means in Hebrew, " Who is like 
God ?") According to Jewish and Christian teaching, the chief 
of the archangels and the head of the celestial militia. He is 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 701 

also, though in a minor capacity to that of St. Denis, the patron 
of France. As such he is believed to have been the direct 
inspirer of Joan of Arc. 

St. Michael is mentioned in the book of Daniel, in the epistle 
of Jude, and in the book of Eevelation, and each time as a 
warrior and hero of battles. 

Milton, following Biblical authority, makes him the leader of 
God's loyal angels, who vanquished Lucifer and his legions and 
consigned them to the dark pit. He is represented with a halo 
around his head, a spear in his hand, and trampling on the fallen 
Lucifer, and at times he has a banner suspended from a cross ; 
this representation is a reminder of the prayer in the Litany 
" to beat down Satan under our feet," and typifies the spiritual 
triumph of good over evil. 

Two festivals are celebrated in his honor by the Catholic 
Church. One, the Apparition of St. Michael, occurs on May 8 ; 
the second and greater festival, recognized also by the Anglican 
Church, and known in England as Michaelmas, in ecclesiastical 
calendars as the feast of St. Michael and All Angels, or the 
feast of the Dedication of St. Michael, occurs on September 29. 
Among the Greeks the chief festival of St. Michael and All 
Angels is on November 8. Another feast, in memory of an ap- 
parition at Colossse, is celebrated by the Greeks and Copts on 
September 6. The dedication of a church to St. Michael in a 
suburb of Constantinople by Constantine the Great is com- 
memorated on June 8 by the Copts and Abyssinians, the Greeks 
also celebrating the last day in honor of a miracle wrought at 
Alexandria. By the Abyssinians the tw^elfth day of every month 
is observed in memory of St. Michael. 

According to Catholic legend, in the year 492 a rich ItaHan 
named Gargan, who fed his cattle upon a hill known after him 
as Mount Gargano (now Monte Sant' Angelo), missed one of his 
bulls. It was found in a cavern wounded by an arrow. When 
one sought to remove this arrow, straightway it flew out of its 
own accord. Gargan told this marvel to the Bishop of Siponto. 
The latter thereupon fasted for three days, and on the night of 
the last was visited by an apparition of St. Michael, who ex- 
plained that the cavern was his favorite resort and that he 
wished a church to be erected there. So the bishop and the 
clergy went in reverent procession to the awful cave and cele- 
brated mass there until a noble church was erected above it and 
dedicated to the archangel. Now, the date of the apparition 
was May 8, and that of the dedication September 29, whence 
these days have ever since been set apart for St. Michael. 

Many subsequent apparitions of St. Michael are recorded, 
and in every case a church has been built upon the site. Many 



702 CURIOSITIES OF 

of these churches being on hills, St. Michael has come to be 
looked upon as the patron of mountains. 

Among others are Mont St. Michel, a steep fortified rock off 
the coast of Normandy, which strikingly resembles St. Michael's 
Mount in Cornwall. Mont St. Michel has an abbey founded in 
the eighth century, and a church built by the Normans. It was 
once believed that a "red velvet-covered buckler" exhibited in 
this church was the identical one won by Michael in his war 
with Lucifer. This was exhibited until 1607, when the Bishop 
of Avranches forbade it. 

St. Michael's chair is on the Mount in Cornwall, and tradition 
asserted that any woman who sat in this chair would ever after 
rule her husband. St. Michael was said to have appeared on 
this mount in the sixth century, and the place, thenceforth holy, 
became the seat of a body of monks, and received a charter from 
Edward the Confessor. On the promontory of Maler is a chapel 
built to St. Michael, and the superstitious sailors think that a 
wind blowing from that quarter is caused by the violent motion 
of St. Michael's wings. Therefore when they sail by that head- 
land they pray to St. Michael to keep his wings still. 

When the Emperor Otho III. had, contrary to his word, put 
to death the rebellious Eoman senator Crescentius, his confessor, 
St. Eomuald, enjoined on him to walk barefoot to Mount Gar- 
gano. This was in the year 1002. Similar pilgrimages in expia- 
tion of sin are not infrequent even in our day. A continuous 
stream of penitents, some coming singly, some in crowds, have 
ever poured towards the various shrines of St. Michael in Catho- 
lic countries. The favorite date at Monte Sant' Angelo in Italy 
is May 8. From the church of St. Michael at the top of the 
mount pilgrims descend by fifty-five steps to the grotto, which 
was once a desolate cavern. 

The feast of St. Michael is alluded to in the ecclesiastical laws 
of the English king Ethelred in the year 1014, it being there pre- 
scribed that every Christian who is of age shall fast on the 
three days previous and then go to confession and to church 
barefoot: "Let every priest with his people go in procession 
three days barefoot, and let every one's commons for three days 
be prepared without anything of flesh, as if themselves were to 
eat it, both in meat and drink, and let all this be distributed to 
the poor. Let every servant be excused from labor these three 
days, that he may the better perform his task, or let him work 
what he will for himself. These are the three days, Monday, 
Tuesday, and Wednesday next before the feast of St. Michael. 
If any servant break his fast, let him make satisfaction with 
his hide, let the poor fi-eeman pay thirty pence, the king's thane 
a hundred and thirty shillings, and let the money be divided 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 703 

to the poor." But these preliminary austerities did not long 
prevail. 

Indeed, the date of Michaelmas carried with it too many asso- 
ciations with the old heathen day of rejoicing when the harvest 
was gathered in. It was in the very heart of the season of 
ripened wheat, of fattened fowl and cattle, of vinous possibili- 
ties. JSTecessarily it became an occasion of good cheer and 
mental and bodily refreshment. In England the custom of hav- 
ing a goose for dinner is almost universal : 

September when by custom (right divine) 
Geese are ordained to bleed at Michael's shrine. 

(Churchill.) 

According to historical authority, Queen Elizabeth was eating 
her Michaelmas goose when she received the tidings of the 
defeat of the Spanish Armada. Some writers urge that this 
was the origin of the custom. But it existed long before EHza- 
beth. Blount's " Tenures" notes the fact that so far back as the 
tenth year of Edward lY. one John de La Hay was bound, 
among other services, to render to William Barnaby, Lord of 
Lastres, in Herefordshire, for a parcel of the demesne lands, 
" xx*^ and one goose fit for his lord's dinner on the Feast of St. 
Michael the Archangel." 

Blount adds that probably no other reason can be given for 
this custom than that Michaelmas Day was a great festival, and 
geese at that time were most plentiful. 

Yet a plausible suggestion is that the custom arose from the 
practice among the rural tenantry of bringing, when paying the 
Michaelmas rent, a fine goose to the landlord to gain his favor. 
The goose was then at its best, owing to the benefit derived from 
stubble-feeding, and of course the great number of such presents 
made it a general custom to have a goose for dinner, as the land- 
lord would have so many given him that he could share them 
with his friends. 

This suggestion is supported by George Gascoyne, who wrote 
in 1575,— 

And when the tenantes come to paie their quarter's rent, 

They bring some fowle at Midsummer, a dish of fish in Lent, 

At Christmasse a capon, at Michaelmasse a goose, 

And somewhat else at New-yere's tide, for feare their lease flie loose. 

Moreover, a superstition prevailed that eating goose at Michael- 
mas guaranteed prosperity for the coming year, and no lack of 
money. In Lincolnshire and Yorkshire especially such old 
beliefs and customs were prevalent, though now abandoned. 
Bonfires were made, stories told, and ballads sung on Michael- 
mas Eve. A handful of each sort of grain that the farmer had 



704 CURIOSITIES OF 

grown was given that night to his cattle for their supper, and 
some of the graio scattered in the court for the wild birds to 
pick up ; this was intended to bring luck to the homestead. 

Many old customs now extinct have been noted by English anti- 
quarians in the past. Brand tells us that '' at this season village 
maidens, in the west of England, go up and down the hedges 
gathering crab- apples, which they carry home, putting them into 
a loft, and forming with them the initials of their supposed 
suitors' names. The initials which are found, on examination, 
to be most perfect on Old Michaelmas Day are considered to 
represent the strongest attachments and the best for choice of 
husbands." (Popular Antiquities, 1849, vol. i. p. 356.) 

Brand also gives an account of a curious septennial custom 
observed at Bishop Stortford and in the adjacent neighborhood 
on old Michaelmas Day. He quotes from a London newspaper 
of the 18th of October, 1787: 

On the morning of this day, called Ganging Day, a great 
number of young men assemble in the fields, where a very active 
fellow is nominated the leader. This person they are bound to 
follow, who, for the sake of diversion, generally chooses the 
route through ponds, ditches, and places of difficult passage. 
Every person they meet is bumped, male or female, which is 
performed by two other persons taking them up by their arms 
and swinging them against each other. The women in general 
keep at home at this period, except those of less scrupulous 
character, who, for the sake of partaking of a gallon of ale and 
a plum-cake, which every landlord or publican is obliged to fur- 
nish the revellers with, generally spend the best part of the 
night in the fields if the weather is fair, it being strictly accord- 
ing to ancient usage not to partake of the cheer anywhere else. 

Martin in his " Account of the Western Isles of Scotland" 
(1703) speaks of the cavalcades that were a feature of the old- 
time Michaelmas festivities in those regions. At Lingay, for 
example, both sexes met on horseback at a designated place on 
the sea-shore where the ground was hard and firm. Here they 
exchanged presents, ran races, and performed feats of horseman- 
ship. Ancient custom made it lawful for any of the inhabitants 
to steal his neighbor's horse the night before and ride him all 
next day, provided he returned him safe and sound after the races. 

In Macaulay's " History of St. Kilda" (1764), p. 22, we read, 
" It was, till of late, an universal custom among the islanders, on 
Michaelmas Day, to prejjare in every family a loaf of cake of 
bread, enormously large, and compounded of diffeient ingredi- 
ents. This cake belonged to the archangel, and had its name 
from him. Every one in each family, whether strangers or 
domestics, had his portion of this kind of shew-bread, and had, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 705 

of course, some title to the friendship and protection of Michael." 
He adds, " In Ireland a sheep was killed in every family that 
could afford one, on the same anniversary; and it was ordained, 
by law that a part of it should be given to the poor. This, as 
we gather from Keating's General History of Ireland, ii. 12, and 
a great deal more, was done in that kingdom to perpetuate the 
memory of a miracle wrought there by St. Patrick through the 
assistance of the archangel. In commemoration of this, Michael- 
mas was instituted a festal day of joy, plenty, and universal 
benevolence." 

There is a pretty and delicate fancy still prevalent in some 
parts of England, that at midnight on Michaelmas Eve' the 
bracken puts forth a small blue flower, which withers and falls 
before the dawn. In many sections of England, and also in Ire- 
land, a superstition exists that at Michaelmas Day the devil 
puts his foot on the blackberries, or throws his club over them; 
people will not gather them after that day, believing that the 
devil has made them poisonous. 

In addition to its festive features, Michaelmas is one of the 
four quarter-days when tenants pay their rent in England, and 
a favorite season for the election of magistrates. Chambers's 
" Book of Days" says, " Local rulers were esteemed in some re- 
spects analogous to tutelar angels in so far as they presided over 
and protected the people. It was therefore thought proper to 
choose them on the day of St. Michael and All Angels." 

In the parish church of St. James, Clerkenwell Green, London, 
an annual sermon is preached on Michaelmas Day as well as All 
Saints' Day. A certain resident of the parish, named Pierson, 
dying many years ago left £50 to the parish on condition that 
£3 be spent annually as follows : " Minister, for sermon concern- 
ing the preparation for death, in the afternoon of St. Michael's 
and All Saints' Day in every year forever (except Michaelnaas 
Day happen to fall on a Sunday, then on the following Monday) 
and the prayers of the Church of England to be there read in 
the same church, 15s. ; reader, 2s. 6d. ; clerk, Is. 6d., and sexton 
Is., for their attendance ; and £1 for forty poor people of the 
parish attending such service, M. each ; the residue, £1, to be 
devoted to a collation for the parson, churchwardens, and over- 
seers after such service." 

Michael's Tree, St., or Suicide Tree. An ailantus which 
formerly stood in what was known as Mulberry Bend in New 
York city. It was destroyed in 1896, when the Bend disappeared 
to make room for the present Park. According to tradition, the 
tree was planted in 1826 by Henry Passman, whose homestead 
at 45 Mulberry Street became in later years the very heart of 

45 



706 



CURIOSITIES OF 



the Bend. Of all the trees that grew in his rear-yard this was 
the only one left when the tenements sprang up and the old 
residents of Mulberry Street fled before the invasion of Italian 
and other immigrants. Legend asserts that during the draft 
riots in 1863 dozens of negroes were hanged on its spreading 
branches, and that in more recent times it bad served as a con- 
venient hanging-place for people who were tired of life. Hence 
the name Suicide Tree. These legends are almost without foun- 
dation. For a full score of years before its destruction, however, 
the Italians of the neighborhood bad dedicated the tree to St. 
Michael. On the two holiday's devoted to the archangel (May 8 
and September 29) the Italian societies, civil and religious, don 
brilliant uniforms and parade around New York. The day's 
ceremonies end up with a mass-meeting in the night. The rear- 
yard where the old tree stood used to be the most convenient 
place in the neighborhood for these meetings. From the little 
Italian church around the corner, an image of St. Michael was 
taken in procession and set up directly under the shadow of the 
ailantus. All around it were placed lighted candles, while lan- 
terns swung from the branches. The night would be spent in 
merrymaking and in raffles for sheep, watches, chains, and 
trinkets. In the early morning St. Michael would be returned 
to his altar. 



Middle Kingdom, Feast of the. A festival celebrated by 
the Chinese about the middle of the second month. (See Cal- 




Feast of the Middle Kingdom. 
(By a Chinese artist.) 



ENDAR, Chinese.) The women hang leaves of the sago-plant, 
with a bulb of garlic and a branch of the cactus tree, over their 
front doors to ward off evil spirits, and then devote themselves 
to the preparation of certain cakes a component part of which is 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 707 

a plant which is looked upon as an antidote to all poisons. This 
is known as the poison-fish plant, because when thrown into the 
water it is believed to kill everything living therein. Various 
superstitions attach to the cakes. If eaten while sitting on the 
threshold of doors they are held to be especially efficacious as 
mascots. They are distributed as presents throughout the length 
and breadth of the land, and are even sent by friends to emi- 
grants in California, Australia, and other parts of the world. 

Mid-Lent. (Fr. Mi-Careme ; It. Mezza Quaresima.) In most 
Catholic countries it has been found popularly necessary to break 
in upon the austerities of the Lenten season by a temporary re- 
lapse into holiday festivities. In old Catholic England the occa- 
sion was seized on Mid-Lent Sunday (q. v.). Here there was no 
relaxation of Church rules, inasmuch as Sundays in Lent are 
ecclesiastically dies non and are exempt from the obligation of 
fasting. In France, however, the decay of faith at about the 
beginning of the eighteenth century led to the establishment of 
the feast of Mi-Careme, on the third Thursday of Lent. It is 
believed to have commenced as a sort of return festival given on 
this date by the young women of the country towns to the young 
men, in acknowledgment of the ball tendered by the latter to 
the young women on the preceding Mardi-Gras (^. v.~). The 
custom spread to Paris, where it has been taken up by the wash- 
erwomen. Four weeks before the appointed date the divinities 
of the wash-tub in every one of the metropolitan districts meet 
together to elect a queen, and these queens in turn assemble and 
choose from their number the queen of queens, who constitutes 
the principal feature of a great procession that stops for a time 
all the traffic of the streets. Each district wash-house has a tri- 
umphal car decorated in the most gorgeous style, drawn by richly 
caparisoned horses, escorted by knights in armor and musicians 
in historical costumes, while perched aloft is the district queen, 
surrounded by her courtiers and ladies-in-waiting. The great 
centre of attraction is, of course, the queen of queens, who sits 
on a golden throne about thirty feet high, her chariot being 
drawn by Eussian horses and surrounded by a burlesque 
court. 

The queen of queens selects a partner, formerly known as the 
ecuyer, or squire, but more recently raised to royal rank as the 
king of the occasion. The festivities wind up with a ball which 
is opened by the queen. 

The washerwomen's ball was a fruitful theme for the carica- 
turists in the early part of this century. Two may be found 
among Cham's works. The legend under one is as follows: 

Customer. — " Can you give me my linen next week ?" 



708 CURIOSITIES OF 

Washerwoman — " Impossible. I have to study the step of 
the lancers. Next Thursday is our ball." 

The other represents a stout washerwoman who sa^^s to her 
assistant, " Go at once and get the countess's linen, so I may 
wash it. I need an embroidered chemise to wear at the wash- 
erwomen's ball." 

The following advance notice of the specially gorgeous fete 
held in 1896 appeared in the New York Journal on February 23 
of that year : 

" Extraordinary preparations are being made this year for the 
Mid-Lenten masquerade in Paris, and according to the promises 
and projects it is likely that these fetes will come nearer to the 
glories of a Neapolitan Carnival than anything that has been 
seen in Paris these many years. 

" The show of 1896 is to take place on March 12, with its 
greatest ceremony, the triumphal passing through the streets 
of the French capital of the queen of queens and her retinue, 
amid all the magnificence of a triuniphal car and the honor of 
being reviewed by France's Chief Executive himself 

" There is one particular reason why these fetes will be nota- 
ble. The shopkeepers have engaged to back the carnival 
strongly, and the students are entering more heartily into it 
than usual. But this is not so much the point. The event will 
be peculiarly notable because there is to be this year a par- 
ticularly stunning ' Peine des Eeines,' the very prettiest of the 
latter-day Trilbys of Paris. 

" For, in accordance with old custom, the queen of this day is 
selected from the ranks of the blanchisseuses, or laundresses, of 
the Parisian capital, and in this trade beautiful women are never 
lacking. The honor has fallen this year upon Henriette Defoul- 
loy, who is one of the ' clear-starch ers' of a famous establishment 
out at Belleville, in the suburbs, an establishment which has al- 
ready provided several queens and maids of honor for this festival. 

" Mile. Defoulloy is a dark-eyed, entrancing, and slim brunette 
of seventeen. Her selection as queen is even a greater compli- 
ment than is usually implied in the choosing, for this year an 
entirely new system of picking out a queen has been adopted. 
In former years the candidates themselves used to gather to- 
gether and choose one of their number. This winter the candi- 
dates, of whom there were thirteen, were ordered to select five 
of their number, and these five afterwards appeared before the 
male organizers of the fetes, who looked over them carefully and 
pronounced judgment, finally picking out Mile. Defoulloy. The 
new system is a better one, for it does away with the traditional 
wire-pulling that there used to be when the girls themselves had 
the elective power. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 709 

" To be a queen of queens in these Mid-Lent festivals means a 
great deal to a Parisian laundress. She not only has the enor- 
mous public honor of being carried along the streets on a throne, 
and of having a popular verdict upon her charms, but she is 
also presented to the President of the Eepublic. Her emolu- 
ments, besides, are very considerable. The Carnival Committee 
gives her one hundred dollars, and other golden perquisites come 
to her from the chief police officials of her district, from the 
municipal councillors, and from others. Last year the queen 
received a splendid bracelet from President Faure. She is also 
given gala robes, and these include a garment that she can after- 
wards use as a wedding-dress. But the requirements of being a 
royal personage during the fete are hard tor a Parisian girl to 
meet, for she must not only be beautiful and shapely, but she 
must also be clever, a perfect mistress of her trade, and of un- 
blemished character. 

" What has become of the former queens of these pageants is 
a subject that is interesting to pursue. The queen of the Mid- 
Lent festivities of 1891 has been found to have recently married, 
and to be still a working laundress. Her gala togs have been 
completely worn out, and the only souvenir she possesses of her 
past glories is the diadem that once adorned her brow, now kept 
in her little parlor under a glass shade. The queen of 1893 has 
had a hard road to travel, for her marital life has been unfortu- 
nate, and she is now taking proceedings for a divorce. Mile. 
Bonhomme, the queen of 1894, has recently been obliged to pawn 
her crown as well as her robes, and even the bracelet that Car- 
not, then President, clasped upon her arm on the fete-day. For 
Bonhomme's father has become a bankrupt. 

"Last year's queen is still washing cheerfully away, with a 
fair outlook of becoming an ' old maid,' for, though she has had 
many offers of marriage, because of her royal honors she has 
refused them all. Her laundry specialty is pocket-handkerchiefs 
and the bosoms of shirts." 

In 1896 there was inaugurated on the same day by the Pari- 
sian artists of the Montmartre a counter-celebration which went 
by the name of the Procession of " the Mad Cow" (la vache en- 
ragee). This was held on the Butte Sacree, or Sacred Hill. 

The " Butte-Sacree" is a peculiar place. Every stranger who 
wishes to know Paris must visit that colony of artists, painters, 
and writers, just as he must go to the top of the Arc de Triomphe 
or the July column. There at the opposite end of the town a 
new Latin quarter has been created, in which, however, a man 
may remain young till he is sixty with impunity, and whose 
gayety, though fully as noisy as that of the students' quarter, 
at times assumes an interesting and fascinating artistic coloring. 



710 CURIOSITIES OF 

Tliis was shown especially on this occasion, for while the students 
followed the Queen of the Washerwomen, exhibiting in their 
disguises only gayety and even vulgarity, on Montmartre, under 
the direction of the poet Emile Godeau, who is also a humorist, 
and of the painter and caricaturist Wiilette, fun was made of 
poverty, the usual companion of artists and thinkers. 

" A popular phrase," says the Paris correspondent of the New 
York Sun, under date of March 14, 1896, '' gave the key-note to 
the masquerade : Manger de la vache enragee means to be reduced 
to eat meat of poor quality, and, by extension, not to get enough 
to eat, the fate for long years and often forever of those who 
remain true to art. In the procession, in front of the celebrated 
cow whose hoofs were stained red with the blood of poets, but 
who was securely bound with strong ropes, marched the Anti- 
Landlord League, bearing on a bed M. and Mme. Pipelet, the types 
of the Paris concierges created by Eugene Sue. These squirm 
on the bed in an extraordinary fashion to the sound of a wooden 
bell incessantly clapping above them; for demenager a la cloche 
de hois means to move out silently without attracting the atten- 
tion of the landlord's agent and without paying the rent. 

" Next came Pegasus, held by two deputy sheriffs for the debts 
of the poet on his back, followed by the chariot of Poetry, and 
by floats representing the works of the principal artists of Mont- 
martre, Wiilette and Faverot with their clowns, Pelez and his 
poor, Pille and his soldiers, and, to crown all, the reproduction 
of Puvis de Chavannes' beautiful panel, the Sacred Wood. Some 
characters belonging to the history of Paris or to legend, such as 
St. Denis carrjing his head under his arm, and the patron saints 
of the city, closed the procession. 

'' At the head marched a corps of cafe waiters, in the place of 
the sappers who lead regiments, bearing newspaper files instead 
of axes, followed by a tall woman very much decolletee as a 
drum-major with a band of little drummers. There was a great 
deal of fun, but the rain fell steadily and Puvis de Chavannes' 
Muses had to hold umbrellas up." 

In Florence there used to be celebrated a quaint popular cere- 
mony in the Piazza Padella at Mid Lent. A large wooden doll 
dressed up as a nun and known as La Monica was first sawed in 
two and then burnt on a funeral pyre amid loud rejoicings. The 
story ran that this figure was Mezza Quaresima, a sister of the 
Befana (see Epiphany), who had been caught in the middle of 
Lent eating a Bologna sausage. This heinous crime was pro- 
nounced unpardonable, and Mezza Quaresima was condemned 
(by whom is not stated) to the punishment of being sawn in 
two, the only remission granted being the privilege of dying in- 
cognita in the garb of a nun. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 711 

Mid-Lent Sunday. The fourth Sunday in Lent, . called 
Laetare Sunday in the Eoman calendar, and popularly known as 
Mothering Sunday in England. This latter title is explained by 
the pretty custom which obtained among the young men and 
women of England who were bound out as apprentices or ser- 
vants, or who lived at some little distance from their first homes, 
to return on this Sunday and visit their parents, carrying with 
them some trifling presents. This was called " going a-mother- 
ing." Behind this custom lay a long history reaching back into 
pagan times. Among the ancient Eomans a festival of the 
Hilaria, or "Mother of the Gods," was held on the Ides of 
March, when the people made offerings in the temple which 
became the property of the priests. After the triumph of 
Christianity the festival was adapted to the new order, and it 
became the custom on Mid-Lent Sunday for the faithful to visit 
their " Mother Church," — i.e., the church in which they were 
baptized and brought up, — bearing gifts for the altar. 

In Shropshire, Yorkshire, and Herefordshire it has long been 
the custom to make during Lent a cake called a simnel, which is 
deemed especially appropriate as a " mothering" present. As far 
back as Herrick we find this quatrain : 

To DiANEME. 

A ceremonie in Glocester. 

I'll to thee a Simnell bring, 
'Gainst thou go'st a-mothering, 
So that when she blesseth thee, 
Half that blessing thou 'It give me. 

The inside of a simnel cake was like a rich fruit-cake, but it 
had an outer crust made of flour and water. Boiled first in 
water, it was subsequently baked. When done, the crust was as 
hard as wood, insomuch that it is reported that people unfamiliar 
with the cakes have mistaken them for footstools. The crust is 
colored yellow with saffron and ornamented with more or less 
art. Professional etymologists refer the word simnel to the 
Latin simila, meaning the finest sort of flour. But folk-etymology 
has far more picturesque origins to suggest. Some pretend that 
the baker-father of Lambert Simnel, pretender to the throne 
in the reign of Henry YIL, was the first to make these cakes, 
thence called after his own name. • Others say that the cake was 
the invention of an old man and an old woman named Simon 
and Nelly, who tried to make a cake for their children out of 
some old materials which they happened to have. They quar- 
relled about whether it should be boiled or baked, and after Nell}^ 
had broken a broom by way of chastisement over Simon, and 



712 CURIOSITIES OF 

Simon had dislocated a stool by throwing it at Nelly, they agreed 
that it should be boiled and then baked : so they used the stool 
for fuel under the pot and the broom for fuel under the oven, and 
the cake was called by a combination of both their names. 

Another dish thought to be appropriate to this day was fru- 
menty, composed of wheat grains boiled in milk sugared and 
spiced. 

Mid-Lent Sunday is occasionally known as Dominica Eefec- 
tionis, the Sunday of Eefreshment, "the reason of which, I sup- 
pose," says Wheatley in his book on the Common Prayer, "is 
the Grospel for the day, which treats of our Saviour's miraculously 
feeding five thousand ; or else, perhaps, from the first lesson in 
the morning, which gives us the story of Joseph's entertaining 
his brother." 

In mediaeval England, as Hone informs us, the boys in the 
country used to go about on the fourth Sunday in Lent with a 
figure of Death made of straw. The villagers would either drive 
them away or purchase their departure with small sums of 
money. Hone adds that this was only a survival from a more 
elaborate ceremony of still more remote date, conducted by a 
larger number of boys, from whom the Death-carriers were a 
detachment, and who bore two figures to represent Spring and 
Winter. These two figures were made to fight with each other. 
Spring invariably won the victory, " and thus was allegorized 
the departure or death of the year and its commencement or 
revival as spring." A similar custom has existed in many other 
countries, and doubtless has its source in pagan antiquity. Thus, 
a seventeenth-century German, Johann Wilhelm Storch, in his 
"Description of the Town of Eisenach," mentions the Sommer- 
Gewinn, or departure of summer, which he similarly surmises to 
be designed as a celebration of the end of winter and the begin- 
ning of summer : 

" This feast was always held on the Sunday called Lsetare, in 
the long fore-town, outside the George's Gate, where booths were 
erected for the sale of confectionery, cakes, and toys. A large 
multitude of the citizens, with their children, visited, in the 
afternoon of this day, their friends and acquaintances dwelling 
in that part of the town, for the purposes of enjoyment and 
purchasing fir-boughs decorated with sweetmeats, toys, and 
other fancy articles. Laden with these same decorated boughs, 
to which the name of ' Summer' was given, they returned 
towards evening, with their joyful children, to their houses. 
Formerly two different customs have been known to be con- 
nected with this feast. The grown-up lads then were wont 
to make a wheel, to which a popanz, or figure of straw, was 
fastened, and to let this run burning down from the top of the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 713 

Madelstein into the fore-town. In the Lausitzer and Meiss- 
nischen countries it was customary in many places to carry 
round such a dressed-up straw man with songs and rejoicing on 
the so-called Dead Sunday, or Laetare, and then to cast the figure 
into the water. On the same day Jobannisfeuer was lighted up 
on every hill-top round about. This Johannis' or John's fire was 
literally the summer's-fire, for what we call Midsummer's Day 
goes by the name of Jobannis-Tag in Germany." According 
to G-rimm, the straw figure represented the dead Winter, and 
was generally associated witb the wheel when that article was 
employed as part of the spring festival. 

Misericordia. (A Latin and Italian word signifying " pity" 
or "mercy.") A semi-religious brotherhood in Florence, Italy, 
which devotes itself to attendance on the sick and dying. It 
took its rise in 1244, when the plague ravaged Europe. The 
artisans of Florence, moved by the contagions that desolated 
their city and left multitudes of sick without succor and of dead 
without burial, were the first to conceive the idea, which was at 
once sanctioned by the Church and aided by the aristocracy. At 
present the brotherhood is under the direction of seventy-two 
members, called Capi di Guardia (" Chiefs of Watch"), and com- 
posed of ten prelates, fourteen nobles, twenty priests, and twenty- 
eight artisans. Under their immediate orders are two hundred 
"giornanti," or journeymen, secular and ecclesiastical. Forty 
of these are always on service. There are besides inscribed upon 
their lists the names of a thousand or more volunteers (huone- 
voglle) whom they can call upon at any moment to assist in their 
charitable labors. The secret of all these names is kept inviolate 
by the Capi di Guardia, partly that the incognito of charity 
recommended by Christ may be preserved, and partly because 
many of the members are penitents engaged in the expiation 
of sin. 

" The office of the Misericordia is in the Piazza del Duomo. 
Each brother on duty keeps there, marked with his name, a box 
containing his black robe, which covers him from head to foot. 
They are such as penitents formerly wore, with openings only 
for the mouth and eyes, in order that the incognito of charity, 
recommended by Christ, shall be strictly preserved. As soon as 
the signal is heard that their services are required, the members 
on duty assemble at their office, assume their mournful habits, — 
which no one can see for the first time without being strangely 
aifected, — receive their orders, and proceed to the scene of their 
duties. Some are required to carry the diseased or wounded to 
the hospitals, or other places, as need may be. Others devote 
themselves to nursing in the homes of the ill and infirm poor. 



714 CURIOSITIES OF 

They often pass days and nights at their bedsides, bestowing 
upon them those attentions which try even the constancy of 
friendship and the affinities of blood. In every place, at any 
hour, wherever an accident calls, a groan is heard, or there are 
misery and suffering to be relieved, the Brothers of Pity are 
required, by their voluntary bond of good deeds, to bestow their 
alms and their offices. It matters not what may be the origin 
of the poor victim, or whether he confesses Christ, Moses, or 
Mohammed. Their charity blesses alike all men, without distinc- 
tion of race or religion. They bury the unknown dead, carrying 
themselves the corpse to its sepulchre. The scaffold even does not 
repel them from fulfilling, in its broadest extent, the spirit of their 
vows. They are to be found at the latest moment beside the 
criminal, consoling and preparing him fur his doom ; and, after 
his head has fallen under the axe of the guillotine, gathering up 
his mangled remains, to bestow upon them a Christian burial. 
Priest and layman, noble and mechanic, unknown to each other, 
and unrecognizable by their nearest relatives, bear upon their 
shoulders the same litter, containing, it may be, a poor cripple 
abandoned by all the world besides." (Harper's Magazine, April, 
1854.) 

Misrule, Lord of. A noted functionary, known also by 
various other names, who was formerly appointed in every great 
household in England to direct the revels of the Christmas season 
and preside over its ceremonies. The custom began with royalty, 
but became so popular that every nobleman and person of posi- 
tion had a Lord of Misrule. In the more ancient days his rule 
began at Halloween and ended with Candlemas; but latterly it 
was restricted to the Twelve Days of Christmas, with occasion- 
ally a revival for the nonce at Candlemas. 

The performance of this lord during the days of his license 
of disorder recalls in many points the Eoman Saturnalia. The 
master and all his household must obey the Lord of Misrule as 
the Eomans obeyed the masters of the feasts of Saturn, and 
there was the same equality of servants with their masters. 
" Christmas," says Selden, in his " Table-Talk," " succeeds the 
Saturnalia, — the same time, the same number of holy days ; then 
the master waited on the servant like the Lord of Misrule." 

An idea of the authority exercised by this Christmas potentate 
is given by the articles of appointment of Owen Flood, trumpeter, 
to be Lord of Misrule for twelve days in the Mansion House of 
Kichard Evelyn, of Walton, in Surrey, High Sheriff of Surrey 
and Sussex in 1634. The document said, " I give free leave to 
said Owen Flood to command all and every person or persons 
whatsoever, as well servants and others, to be at his command 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 715 

whenever he shall sound his Trumpet or Musick, and to do 
him good service, as though I were present myself, at their 
perils." 

Every person was commanded to appear in the hall at seven 
A.M. and attend prayers, on pain of such punishment as the lord 
saw fit to impose. To swear on the precincts, to come into the 
hall and sit at dinner or supper more than once, to be drunk, or 
to drink more than is fit, or to offer to sleep, was to incur punish- 
ment ; while if a person did not drink up his bowl of beer, but 
flung away his snuffe (that is, his second draught), he should 
drink two and afterwards be excluded. Drinking too little was 
as perilous as drinking too much. To quarrel or use ill language 
within the twelve days was to incur the lord's displeasure : " Item : 
If any one shall come into the kitchen whiles meat is a-dressing, 
to molest the cooks, he shall suffer the rigor of his lordship's law. 
Item : If any man shall kisse any maid, widdow, or wife, except 
to bid welcome or farewell, without his lordship's consent, he shall 
be punished as his lordship shall think convenient." And finally, 
" I give full power and authority to his lordship to brake up all 
lockes, bolts, barres, doores, and latches, and to flinge up alle 
doores out of hendges, to come at all those who presume to dis- 
obey his lord's commands. God save the king!" 

Mr. Philip Stubbes, the morose Elizabethan Puritan whose 
" Anatomic of Abuses" was published in 1583, has a good deal to 
say about these "hell-hounds," as he genially denominates the 
Lord of Misrule and his complices. He tells us that in the rural 
districts " the grand captaine of mischief," on being crowned and 
adopted as king by the wild heads of the parish, selects three- 
score or so lusty attendants " lyke himselfe." These he invests 
with his liveries, green, yellow, or some other light wanton color. 
"And as though that were not gaudie enough I should sale, they 
bedecke themselves with scarfes, ribbons, and laces, hanged all 
over with golde rynges, precious stones, and other jewelles : this 
doen, they tye about either legge twentie or fourtie belles, with 
rich hande-kercheefes in their hands, and sometimes laied across 
their shoulders and neckes, borrowed for the most parte of their 
pretie Mopsies and loovyng Bessies for bussyng them in the 
darcke. Thus thinges sette in order, they have their hobbie- 
horses, dragons, and other antiques, together with their baudie 
pipers and thunderyng drommers, to strike up the Deville's 
daunce withall : then marche these heathen companie towardes 
the churche and churcheyarde, their pipers pipyng, drommers 
thunderyng, their stumppes dauncing, their belles jynglyng, 
their hand-kercheefes swynging about their heads like madmen, 
their hobbie-horses and other monsters skyrmishyng amongst 
the throng : and in this sort they goe to the churche (though 



716 CURIOSITIES OF 

the minister bee at praier or preachyng) dauncing and swingyng 
their hand-kercheefes over their heades in the churche, Jike 
devilles incarnate, with such a confused noise that no man can 
heare his own voice. Then the foolishe people they looke, they 
stare, they laugh, they fieere, and mount upon formes and pews 
to see these goodly pageauntes solemnized in this sort. Then, 
after this, aboute the church they goe againe and againe, and so 
forthe into the churche-yarde, where they have commonly their 
sommer haules, their bowers, arbours, and banquettyng houses 
sett up, wherin they feaste, banquet, and daunce all that dale, 
and (peradventure) all that night too. And thus these terrestrial 
furies spend their Sabbaoth daie." 

In the year 1637 some Lincolnshire farmers came up before 
the Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical on the charge of 
carrying their Christmas revelries too far. ISTot content with a 
Lord of Misrule, they determined he should have a lady or 
Christmas wife. Probably there was no harm in this, but only 
in the method by which the lady was assigned to the lord. 
Eliza Pitto, daughter of the hogherd of the town, was brought 
in as bride. A farmer named Saunders received her. He was 
disguised as a parson, wearing a shirt or smock for a surplice. 
He then married the Lord of Misrule to the hogherd's daughter, 
reading the whole of the marriage service from the Book of 
Common Prayer. All the after ceremonies and customs then in 
use were observed with all the license of the times. The parties 
had time to repent at leisure in prison. 

In the University of Cambridge the functions of the Lord of 
Misrule were performed by one of the Masters of Arts, who was 
regularly elected to superintend the annual representation of 
Latin plays by the students, besides taking a general charge of 
their games and diversions during the Christmas season, and 
was styled the Imperator or Prsefectus Ludorum. A similar 
Master of Eevels was chosen at Oxford, under the title of Christ- 
mas Prince. But it seems to have been in the Inns of Court 
in London that the Lord of Misrule reigned with the greatest 
splendor, being surrounded with all the parade and ceremony of 
royalty, having his lord-keeper and treasurer, his guard of honor, 
and even his two chaplains, who preached before him on Sunday 
in the Temple Church, gravely saluting him as they ascended the 
pulpit, as was the custom in Chapel Eoyal on preaching before 
the king. On Twelfth Day he abdicated his sovereignty. In 
the year 1635 this mock representative of royalty expended in 
the exercise of his office about two thousand pounds from his 
own purse, and at the conclusion of his reign was knighted by 
Charles I. at Whitehall. The office, indeed, seems to have been 
regarded among the Templars as a highly honorable one, and to 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 717 

have been generally conferred on young gentlemen of good 
family. 

In 1666 Evelyn saw this solemn foolery at Lincoln's Inn, when 
the mock king was gloriously clad and attended : at this revel 
the king (Charles II.) and the Duke of York were present. On 
the 6th of January his majesty opened the revels himself by 
throwing the dice in the Privy Chamber, and lost at the play 
one hundred pounds ; but he could afford it, for the year before 
he won fifteen hundred pounds. The ladies also played very 
deep. As late as the times of Kings George I. and II. the revels 
remained, and these gracious kings played in public at the 
hazard-table. 

In Scotland, previous to the Eeformation, the monasteries used 
to elect a functionary of a similar character for the superintend- 
ence of the Christmas revels, who was known as the Abbot of 
Unreason. A graphic description of one of these mock ecclesi- 
astics may be tbund in " The Abbot," by Sir Walter Scott. An 
ordinance for suppressing this annual burlesque, with other fes- 
tivities of a like kind, was passed by the Scottish legislature in 
1555. The Scotch Abbot is probably an offshoot from the French 
Abbe de Liesse or Abbas Stultorum who conducted the festivities 
at the Feast of the Ass. 

Mistletoe. In scientific language the mistletoe is a species 
of viscum, of the natural order JJoranthacece, which grows as a 
parasite both on deciduous and on evergreen trees and shrubs, 
but mainly on the poplar, the hawthorn, the pear, and the apple, 
— preeminently, indeed, on the latter. It forms an evergreen 
bush, about four feet in length, thickly crowded with (falsely) 
dichotomous branches and opposite leaves. 

It grows in a very peculiar manner ; unlike all other plants, 
its shoots extend downward as well as upward, giving the tree 
an odd general appearance with these tufts sticking below and 
above the bare branches in winter, lumpy clusters of sprigs, di- 
viding and multiplying at their extremities, in color the darkest 
green, which look almost black against a clear sky. The leaves 
and flowers spring from the knotty points of bifurcation, which 
are added yearly, on the slender stems. There are two leaves, 
of a dull leathery complexion, at each knot, and a very small 
yellowish flower, hardly perceptible to the careless eye, at the 
base of the leaves. Towards the month of November these 
flowers change into the fruit, the little round whitish berries 
with which Anglo-Saxon nations become familiar at Christmas 
in our festive household parties. The berry is filled with a semi- 
fluid viscous substance as sticky as birdlime. But it is not until 
the fourth year of its growth that the plant yields these berries, 



718 CURIOSITIES OF 

and it is in the fifth or sixth year that it is worih while to take 
it for their sake. 

So much for the hard, dull prose of its biography, which may 
be gleaned from any encyclopaedia. But were this prose all that 
could be said of the mistletoe there would be small reason for its 
popularity. It is because that prose is intertwined with poetry 
and mystery, it is because the mistletoe has become the centre 
of more than one cycle of legendary and traditional lore, it is 
because it was connected with the heathen Saturnalia and was 
adopted into the Christian festivities which transformed the 
soulless license of the past into the pretty and harmless indeco- 
rum of the present, — it is for all these reasons that the very word 
mistletoe greets the fancy pleasantly and appeals to the latent 
superstition and mysticism of even the best-balanced minds. 

In Scandinavian mythology the mistletoe figures as the ma- 
terial of the arrow with which Balder, the sun-god, was slain. 
And this is the story. When Balder was born, his mother, 
Frigga, invoked all the elements, all animals and all plants, and 
obtained an oath from all that they would do Balder no hurt. 
One plant only she forgot, on account of its insignificance, — the 
parasitic mistletoe. When Balder grew up and took his part 
among the combats of the gods, all weapons glanced harmlessly 
away from him and all the powers of nature proved innocuous. 
But Loki, his enemy, determined to learn the secret of his invul- 
nerability. Dressing himself up as an old woman, he wheedled 
the secret out of Frigga, including the fact that mistletoe had 
been overlooked. Then Loki made an arrow of mistletoe wood. 
Entering the assembly of the gods, he said to the blind Hoder, 
" Why do you not contend with the arrows of Balder?" " I am 
blind and have no arms," returned Hoder. Then Loki presented 
him with the arrow and said, " Balder is before thee." Hoder 
shot, and Balder fell dead. 

Among the ancient Druids the mistletoe was the object of 
special veneration, but only when it grew upon an oak. Pliny, 
who is our earliest authority on Druidism, furnishes an explana- 
tion, — viz., that, as oaks were their sacred trees, whatever was 
found growing upon one they regarded as sent from heaven, 
and as a mark that that tree was set apart for special venera- 
tion. Hence, he says, they called the parasite omnia sdnitatem 
("all-heal"), and looked upon it as a cure for sterility and an 
antidote for poisons. 

Alas for the rarity of Christian charity among historians and 
archaeologists ! It is hinted that even in Druidic times the para- 
site rarely if ever grew on oaks, but that the wily priests would 
furtively transplant their mystic shrub from apple-trees, where 
it was sure to grow, to oaks, where otherwise it would be un- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 719 

likely to be found. It is known that the apple-tree was held by 
the Druids to be the next sacred tree to the oak, and that apple 
orchards were shrewdly planted by them in the vicinity of their 
oak groves. At the present moment it is estimated that in all 
England there are not half a dozen oak-trees on which the para- 
site is growing. That in the elder days mistletoe oaks were 
even rarer seems to be proved by an ancient manuscript in the 
British Museum, from which the following paragraph is /quoted: 
" Heare my Lord Frescheville did live [in Derbyshire], and heare 
grows the famous misseltoe tree, the only oake in England that 
bears misseltoe." 

At the time of the winter solstice, which was almost univer- 
sally looked upon in Europe as a festival period, the Druids 
gathered the mistletoe with great ceremony. Five days after 
the new moon a grand procession was formed. First came the 
bards, then a herald, who bore the cutting implement usually de- 
scribed as a golden scythe, though sometimes as a reaping-hook 
of the same metal, or even a golden knile-blade or hatchet at- 
tached to a shaft. The priests came next, with the Prince of the 
Druids in their wake. All were clad in white. Then followed 
the people, male and female. 

When the oak was reached on which the mistletoe grew, two 
white bulls were bound to the tree, and the prince, taking the 
knife from the herald, climbed up the tree and cut the mistletoe, 
which was caught in a white mantle held by the inferior priests. 
The bulls, and sometimes even human victims, were then sacri- 
ficed. The mistletoe thus gathered was divided into nmall por- 
tions and distributed on the first day of the new year to the 
people, amid cries of " The mistletoe for the new year !" 

In their turn the people hung up the sprays over the entrances 
to their houses, as a propitiation and an offer of shelter to the 
sylvan deities during the season of frost and cold. These vari- 
ous rites and ceremonies were kept up throughout the Eoman 
dominion in Britain, and down even to the Anglo-Saxon period. 
They were also celebrated among the Druids in Northern and 
Western France. 

Bellini in his opera of " Norma" refused to take this historical 
account of the Druidic ceremony, and substituted an invention 
of his own, which has gained a certain tolerated acceptance in 
literature and art. Norma is a Druidic prophetess. At the head 
of two other Druidesses and of a company of children, all clad 
in white, she marches into the sacred groves. A gong is at- 
tached to an old, fine fellow of an oak, which might lead the un- 
initiated to suppose that the Druids were up to the manufacture 
of bell-metal. Norma, stretching forth her white left arm, 
strikes three strokes, and the other Druids, men and women, 



720 CURIOSITIES OF 

come filing in. Then Norma, having two baskets and a reaping- 
hook brought to her by two of the damsels of the temple, pro- 
ceeds to cut the sacred mistletoe, which, with the hook, she 
deposits in the basket still held by the damsels, who then retire. 

But let us pass to modern times. Mistletoe was abandoned in 
the Christmas decking of churches, together with kissing at the 
services, because both were found to set the young ladies and 
gentlemen a-reading the marriage service. Holly and unkissed 
kisses were substituted, to indicate to them the dark monotony 
of matrimony and the numerous thorns with which it abounded. 
But, though banished from the churches, mistletoe and the kiss- 
ing under it flourished apace in the servants' halls at the Christ- 
mas period. " In the kitchen," says Brand, " it was hung up in 
great state, and whatever female chanced to stand under it, the 
young man present either had a right, or claimed one, of saluting 
her and of plucking off a berry at each kiss." Nares makes it 
ominous for the maid not so saluted, inasmuch as this indicated 
that she would not be married that year. 

The mistletoe did not long remain exclusively in the kitchen. 
It speedily invaded the parlor and the drawing-room, without, 
however, reducing the quantity of kissing in the lower regions. 

Kissing under the mistletoe, as already indicated, is undoubt- 
edly an innocent survival from the Saturnalia of the ancients, 
when riot and license ran loose. 

In England all classes and ages deliver themselves up will- 
ing victims to long-established custom. In many old-fashioned 
houses the elderly gentleman, with long waistcoat and frilled 
and rufiied shirt, advances to the object of his immediate devo- 
tion and makes a low bow. The elderly lady rises and achieves 
a stately courtesy. Then the pair walk hand in hand to beneath 
the mistletoe, and the old gentleman delicately touches with his not 
yet withered lips the cheeks of the elderly lady. Then there is 
another bow and courtesy, and a third, when the gentleman 
conducts the lady to her seat. How different all this from the 
joyous freedom of the younger people ! What romping, what 
slight, pretty screaming, what tittering, what make-believe run- 
ning away, and what bold standing under the mistletoe! The 
small fry of short frocked misses and jacketed masters are never 
tired of kissing one another, while another class of determined 
osculators are the rather scrimp and running-to-seed young 
ladies of thirty-five, who are getting desperate, and the jolly, 
bald-headed bachelors, who kiss every girl that comes in their 
way. 

French society manners have never approved of kissing games, 
hence the mistletoe has never in France enjoyed any special sig- 
nificance. As a Christmas decoration the holly, the pine branch, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 721 

the ivy, the laurel, and other evergreens, with the flower called 
rose de Noel, are found more suitable for artistic arrangement. 
Yet it is a noteworthy fact that the larger part of the mistletoe 
sold in England at Christmas comes from the apple orchards of 
Normandy. 

In America a species of mistletoe called the phoradendron 
grows all along the temperate belt from New Jersey to California. 
It differs in many points from the foreign variety. The true 
mistletoe is frequently imported at Christmas-time, but the holly 
is the favorite evergreen for decoration, and often carries with 
it the osculatory privileges accorded in England to the mistletoe 
alone. 

Mohammed, Moolid or Birthday of. The Prophet's birth- 
day is one of the greatest festivals of the Moslem world, and is 
celebrated with dances of dervishes, performances of the Ais- 
saoui (q. v.\ music, illuminations, the roasting of sheep and bul- 
locks, and general rejoicing. The most famous function of the 
day is that known as the Doseh, or Trampling, which occurs in 
the Esbekiyeh Gardens in Cairo. Thousands gather to see this 
performance. About ten a.m. the two or three hundred dervishes 
who are to submit to the Doseh make their appearance. Two by 
two in a long file, the near hands of each pair clasped together, 
and the ofP hands resting on the shoulders of the men in front, 
down they come rushing through a narrow lane made for them 
through the heaving and struggling multitude. As they come 
they sway from side to side with a uniform automatic movement, 
gasping out, " Allah !" They are all pale and bathed with sw^at, 
drunk with fanaticism, possibly with something else. Arriving 
at the open space in the avenue where the Doseh is to take place, 
they all stop, fall flat upon their faces, and arrange themselves 
side by side to form a living pavement, a sort of corduroy road 
of men. 

Busy officials running to and fro fit all the human logs together 
neatly, by adjusting here an arm and there a leg. The logs, 
however, are not bound to lie quite still, but, on the contrary, 
they are expected to keep up, and do keep up, a convulsive 
twitching motion through their bodies, while at the same time 
these miserable men are all at work rubbing their noses violently 
in the dust from side to side, and grunting out the name of Cod 
in swinish accents. Some believing bystanders are infected with 
the fierce plague of fanaticism, and go down among the grovel- 
lers. There is a murmur, a shout, and a dead silence, while the 
crowd sways eagerly forward. A stout man, on a powerful 
horse, surrounded by about a dozen attendants, moves at a quick 
walking pace over the prostrate bodies. Each dervish receives 

46 



722 



CURIOSITIES OF 



the horse's tread over his loins ; some throw up their heads and 
feet when the weight falls, writhing like worms. The sheik 
rides on and away. The friends of the dervishes run forward to 
pick them up, and whisper in their ears, " Wahed," which 
means, "Declare the Unity of Grod." Some can only gi*oan, some 
are in a swoon, some respond to the appeal with foaming or with 
bleeding lips. A few have evidently passed through fanaticism 
into fits. 

Each dervish is entitled to two horse-hairs from the sheik's 
horse, one from the fore-leg and one from the hind-leg. Those 
who are injured during the Doseh are thought saintly accord- 
ing to the extent of the damage received. The others — there 
is a superstitious belief that no one is permanently maimed- — 
are scarcely congratulated ; the seal of the Prophet is not on 
them ; they may return to the world and the flesh. 

Monday, St., or Cobblers' Monday. It is humorously as- 
serted in the folk-lore of both England and continental Europe 
that cobblers and shoemakers, not satisfied with their annual 




St. Monday. 
(From a French lithograph of the eighteenth century.) 



outing on St. Crispin's Day, require a weekly holiday every 
Monday. Hence the personification of St. Monday, or Saint- 
Lundi. The further explanation is offered in Belgium that the 
shoemakers do not know exactly on what day St. Crispin's fes- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 723 

tival rightly falls, save that it should be on a Monday; they 
therefore celebrate every Monday, so as to be sure of not letting 
the day slip by unhonored. Popular imagination has even gone 
so far as to produce a St. Monday in caricature. He is repre- 
sented as a shoemaker surrounded by people of various trades 
and squatting on a barrel ; his slippers are torn and tattered, his 
sleeves are rolled up to the elbows, and in his right and left 
hands respectively he holds a pitcher and a glass of wine. In 
one of these caricatures, published at Epinal in 1835, the follow- 
ing verses are put in his mouth : 

Vous qui commencez la semaine 

Au troisieme jour seulement, 

De Pompe a Mort, dit Long-Haleine, 

Gai savetier, buveur ardent, 

Et de plus votre president, 

Ecoutez tous un avis sage 

Que ma prudence va dieter : 

Abandonnez votre menage 

Et venez tous rire et chanter. 

(" You who begin the week 
Only with the third day, 
From Pomp-in-Death, called Long-Breath, 
A gay cobbler, an ardent drinker. 
And, above all, your president, 
Listen to this wise advice 
Which my prudence dictates to you : 
Quit your households 
And come all to laugh and sing.") 

A folk-song which is current with variations in both France 
and Belgium pictures the shoemaker's life as one continual round 
of pleasure : 

Les cordonniers sont pires que des eveques. 

Tous les lundis ils en font une fete. 
Tirez fort, piquez fin ! 
Coucher tard et lever matin. 

Et le mardi ils vont boire la chopinette, 

Le mercredi ils ont mal a la tete, 

Et le jeudi ils vont voir leurs fiUettes. 

Le vendredi ils commencent la semaine, 

Et le samedi les bottes ne sont pas faites. 

Le dimanche ils vont trouver leur maitre. 

Leur faut I'argent, les bottes ne sont pas faites. 
" Tu n'en auras pas, si les bottes ne sont faites." 
" Si je n'en ai pas je veux changer de maitre." 

(" Shoemakers are worse than bishops. 
Every Monday they make a holiday. 
Pull hard"! Prick lightly ! 
Late to bed and early to rise. 



724 CURIOSITIES OF 

On Tuesday they drink, 

On Wednesday they have a headache, 

On Thursday they go to see their girls. 

On Friday they begin the week. 

And on Saturday the shoes are not made. 

On Sunday they seek their masters. 

They want money, the shoes are not made. 

' You shall have none, if the shoes are not made.' 
' If I don't get any, I will change my master.' ") 

In Spain the same idea is put more tersely : 

Lunes y Martes de chispa ; 
Miercoles la estan durmiendo ; 
Jueves y Viernes mala gana ; 
y el Sabado entra el estruendo. 

(" Monday and Tuesday days of wine ; 
Wednesday they spend in sleep ; 
Thursday and Friday they are sick, 
On Saturday the noise recommences.") 

Month's Mind. An ancient solemn commemorative service 
in the Catholic Church held one month after the death of the 
person for the benefit of whose soul it was celebrated. His (or 
her) name was wont to be written on a tablet and kept on the 
altar, and was read out at the proper point in the mass. This 
was called " mynding" the dead. The ceremony might be repeated 
each month for a year, in which case it was called "a year's 
mind." The phrase is still retained in Lancashire, England, an 
exceptionally Catholic county, but elsewhere the " Mind Days" 
are called " Anniversary Days." In what esteem this " month's 
mind" was formerly held is shown by the elaborate directions 
for the conduct of it found in the wills of sundry persons of con- 
sequence. Thus, Thomas Windsor, Esq. (1479), wills that at his 
"Moneth's Minde" "there be a hundred children within the age 
of sixteen years, to say for my soul." Also, " that against my 
month's mind candles be burned before the rood in the parish 
church ; also, that my executors provide twenty priests to sing 
Placebo, Dirige, etc." Fabyan (born 1450), one of the historians 
of early Britain, also gives instructions in his will for his " Month's 
Mind." " I will that myne executrice doo cause to be carried 
from London xii newe torches to burne in the tymes of the said 
burying and monethes minde. Also, I will that breade, ale and 
chese for all comers to the parish church be ordered as shall be 
thought needful against a monethes mind.'' " In Ireland," we are 
told by an authority, " after the death of great personages they 
count four weeks ; and four weeks from that day all priests and 
friarSj and all the gentry far and near, are invited to a great 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 725 

feast, usually termed the month's mind. The preparations for 
this feast are masses said in all parts of the house at once for 
the soul of the departed. If the room be large, there are three 
or four priests celebrating together in the several corners of the 
room. The masses done, they proceed to their feasting, but 
after all the others each priest and friar is discharged with 
his largess." 

Montyon Prize of Virtue. This is the most popular and 
famous of four foundations of ten thousand francs each estab- 
lished in their present form by the will of the French philanthro- 
pist Jean-Baptiste Antoine Auget, Baron of Montyon (1733- 
1820). In his own lifetime so far back as 1780 he had established 
similar prizes, but they had been interrupted by the Eevolution. 
By the terms of the will the respective sums were to be put out 
at interest, the yearly incomes being given as prizes in the fol- 
lowing fashion : 

1. For an improvement decreasing the sanitary risks of any 
mechanical employment. 

2. For the discovery or invention of any medical or surgical 
improvement. 

3. For an act of virtue performed by a French citizen. 

4. For the most moral and useful book written by a French 
citizen. 

The first two prizes are in the keeping of the Academy of 
Sciences, the latter in that of the French Academy. The third, 
as already stated, has become the most popular, so that by suc- 
cessive endowments the one original prize of virtue has been 
increased to ninety-eight. 

Fortunately, the academic discourse which accompanies their 
bestowal remains limited to the half-hour prescribed by M. de 
Montyon. He also wished that the virtuous actions rewarded 
should have endured for a period of at least two years. But 
with the present affluence of demands it is oftener a devotedness 
of twenty or forty years that is singled out for recompense. As 
M. Ludovic Halevy, the oratpr of 1894, took pains to declare 
pleasantly, " The Academy rewards only virtues that are chronic, 
inveterate, incurable, and even hereditary." 

All the departments and even the colonies of France have the 
right to present candidates, the memorials in each case being of 
necessity signed by persona of weight in the place, who are re- 
sponsible for the truth of the statements made. The cases are 
required to be presented with the most minute detail, and no 
effort is spared to prevent deception. They are then examined 
by a committee of the Academy, and proportionate sums are 
awarded. 



726 CURIOSITIES OF 

AmoDg the prizes bestowed in the pre-Eevolutionary days were 
some for courage in helping the shipwrecked at the risk of life, tor 
the fidelity of servants who had taken on themselves the support 
of their masters when these had fallen into poverty, for certain 
children who had honored themselves by their filial " sensibility." 
It was the age of Eousseau's sentimentalism. This had its con- 
sequence and commentary in the unique and most enthusiastic 
demonstration made in 1790 over a woman of Paris, a seller of 
silks and cloths, who received the Montyon prize of virtue of 
that year for '' having broken the fetters of a prisoner of the 
Bastille." 

Here are examples of the class of heroes who in recent years 
have carried off the highest of the Montyon prizes, twenty-five 
hundred francs. They are taken from contemporary reports. 

1. The cure of the little village of Loigny. '' This good priest, 
then thirty-six years old, on the night of the 2d of December, 
1870, saved from massacre in the bloody battle between French 
and Prussians over five hundred of the wounded of both sides, 
whom he dragged with his own hands from the confusion of the 
snow-covered field of combat to the shelter of his house and 
church. After a day and night spent in hard labor in the midst 
of the fight, he lay down to rest on a bundle of straw in the 
cellar, — the only place he had left for himself. After the war 
he took up again his ordinary life of obscure ministrations. 
Thanks to Mme. MacMahon and M. Jules Simon, who was then 
minister of the interior, all the dead of the plain of Loigny 
were intrusted to his care. With unwearied efforts he has col- 
lected two hundred and forty thousand francs, which he has 
used in building a mortuary chapel where twelve hundred of 
the fallen soldiers are buried. The twenty-five hundred francs 
of the Montyon prize are all that is needed to pay off the last 

2. Pierre Crouzillat, captain of the life-boat at Sables-d'Olonne. 
" He has saved from wreck upward of forty barks, schooners, 
and fishing-boats, the crews of merchant-vessels, English, Ger- 
man, and Norwegian, having borne their testimony, time after 
time, to his daring courage and extraordinary devotion. Thirty- 
two years ago he rescued two persons from the midst of a burn- 
ing house at Brest. Since then he has saved eighteen others 
from drowning, not only imperilling his own life, — that is taken 
for granted, — -but venturing into circumstances of such extreme 
danger that even those who knew best his strength and wonder- 
ful powers of endurance gave him up for lost. His own belief 
is that a special providence protects those who risk their lives 
for the sake of others, and certainly thus far events have justified 
his theory. Ingratitude he never has met with, or want of ap- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 727 

preciation on the part of his superiors. He has received diplomas, 
medals, even the decoration of the Legion of Honor. But the 
Montyon prize holds a position in popular favor above and be- 
yond all others, and Pierre Crouzillat is this year made happy 
by receiving its highest medal." 

3. The Abbe Brassier, of Saint Georges de Eaimtembault. 
" Another in the long list of French cures who have given them- 
selves up to the task of reclaiming outcast children. But before 
undertaking this special work he had already shown himself 
possessed of the most noble qualities. When the war of 1870 
broke out, he left Montfort, where he was vicaire (or assistant 
priest), and as volunteer chaplain accompanied the troops of his 
department. Opportunities were not wanting for the display 
of courage and self-sacrifice, and on more than one desperate 
occasion his conduct so aroused the enthusiasm of the battalion 
that, at the request of the officers, the cross of the Legion of 
Honor was bestowed upon him. At the close of the war he was 
sent to his present parish, St. G-eorges, where he has gathered 
around him, one after another, fifteen vagrant and orphan boys, 
not only providing them with food and shelter, but having them 
taught honest and useful trades. Not content with this one 
orphanage, he has lately opened another for girls. Sixty children 
constitute his present adopted family, — sixty hungry, growing 
boys and girls ! It is a difficult matter for a poor cure to pro- 
vide even daily bread for so many ; but his faith is strong, he 
loves his work and his children, and believes that God will never 
forsake those who care for the orphan. The twenty-five hundred 
francs of the Montyon prize will lighten, for a time at least, his 
heavy burden of anxiety." 

Mop, Runaway Mop. The word mop, or mapp, is an abbre- 
viation of the Latin mappa, applied to some of the old Eoman 
games from the fact that a sort of napkin so named was called 
into frequent use. It survives in England only in the term a 
" runaway mop," a second or subsidiary fair or hiring. " Occa- 
sionally such a fair is held shortly after the first, and this is 
termed a runaway mop from its having run away from its 
usual course and collected the runaways from the regular mops. 
Although these mops and statutes have in some places dwindled 
to a shadow of what they were, yet in many parts they still 
flourish, like weeds of evil growth, despite the efforts made by 
the clergy and laity in the establishment of servants' registra- 
tion offices. The Yorkshire Martinmas Statutes, this last No- 
vember, were as largely attended as usual, and marked by the 
same riotous drunkenness and profligacy. Of course the secret 
of the popularity of such evils is to be found in their affording 



728 CURIOSITIES OF 

to the agricultural laborers and their friends that revelry and 
merrymaking from which their lack of holidays deprives them. 
If their rational amusements were extended, they would not 
find so much pleasure in noxious excitement." (Once a Week, 
January 15, 1870.) 

Moving- Day. This name was formerly given in New York 
and Boston to May-Day because the great majority of leases 
made of flats in these cities dated from May 1 to May 1. At 
present, however, the yearly lease is becoming less common, and 
the moving anniversary has consequently lost its universality. 
Something of the dolors that have passed away with the occa- 
sion may be gathered from Mr. George W. Curtis's wail made in 
Harper's Magazine in 1855 : 

" May-Day is a serious matter. If ' Pa' doesn't own his house, 
woe to him. It is as if the world were ending. It is a mael- 
strom of furniture, and distracted people carrying mirrors and 
fragile articles. It is the grand unveiling of a thousand house- 
hold economies. You see the state of your neighbor's pots and 
pans. You detect his broken pitchers and patched tureens. All 
the domestic subterfuges come to light, and are publicly carried 
by the window. It may rain, or blow, or snow, or freeze — but 
the work goes on. It is the Exodus of Gotham. Unhappy 
ones, who pay rent, and who will not rise into ruinous rates, you 
must trudge. Behold the charette at the door. Bundle ! bundle ! 
And away go the unhappy, tumbling over those who go out as 
they come in, and, O Cloacina ! they sit down in the dirt of 
Mrs. Margery Daw's household, which custom does not require 
that housekeeper to remove. 

" There is no day more dreary and disgusting than Moving- 
Day. And why there should be this insane conspiracy of every 
man against his neighbor's convenience, why every lease should 
begin and expire upon the same day, does not appear. It might 
be more pleasantly arranged, more wisely, and more profitably. 
But, we repeat, great is the force of bad habit. And great is 
the misery of moving our households, as we do everything else, 
in the most awkward, shiftless, and expensive manner. But 
there is one thing that an American will not do ; and that is — 
learn. He will bungle his way out, if he can. If not, he will 
be apt to call his way the best. The Italians, when they wish 
to saw wood, rub the log against the saw. But it is not the 
best way." 

In Paris April 15 is the terme. Those who wish to continue 
on in their apartments, and are able to pay the rent, remain. 
Those who do not, move. Hence it is the moving-day. In Scot- 
land the " Flitting-Day" (q. v.) is on May 22. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 729 

Mummers. (Dan. mumme^ Dutch, momme, " a mask.") Par- 
ties of masqueraders who disguised themselves in masks after 
the manner of the ancient Eomans in the Saturnalia. Christmas 
was the grand scene of mumming, and some mummers were 
disguised like bears, others like unicorns, bringing presents. 
Those who could not procure masks rubbed their faces with 
soot, or painted them. In the Christmas mummeries the chief 
aim was to surprise by the oddity of the masks and the sin- 
gularity and splendor of the dresses. Everything was out of 
nature and propriety. They were often attended with an exhi- 
bition of gorgeous machinery. Besides the set and formal mum- 
mings, the members, guests, and servants of a household would 
put on masks, and, thus disguised, practise rude jests on one 
another. So many evils grew out of the habit of general mas- 
querade at the holiday season, and so many murders and robberies 
were committed in London and other large cities by disguised 
ruffians, that Henry YIII. issued a proclamation declaring the 
wearing of a mask a misdemeanor ; but it does not appear that 
hilarity of this kind was in any degree repressed by the royal 
edict. The mummers had their songs, one of the best known 
being a madrigal to the words 

To shorten winter's sadness 
See where the folks with gladness 
Disguised all are coming 
Eight wantonly a-mumming. 

In Scotland the mummers are called guisards. The evenings 
on which these personages are understood to be privileged to 
appear are those of Christmas, Hogmanay, New Year's Day, 
and Handsel Monday. Dressed up in quaint and fantastic attire, 
they sing a selection of songs which have been practised by them 
some weeks before. Some of their doings are of a theatrical 
character. There is one rude and grotesque drama (called " Ga- 
latian") which they are accustomed to perform on each of the 
four above-mentioned nights, and which in various fragments or 
versions exists in every part of Lowland Scotland. The per- 
formers, who are never less than three, but sometimes as many 
as six, having dressed themselves, proceed in a band from house to 
house, generally contenting themselves with the kitchen for an 
arena, whither, in mansions presided over by the spirit of good 
humor, the whole family will resort to witness the scene of mirth. 
(See Chambers's " Popular Ehymes," p. 170.) 

Even now, in the country districts of Wales, mumming is far 
from uncommon. A party of singers will procure a horse-skull, 
place it on a pole as a sort of standard, disguise themselves in 
masks, and, thus rigged out, visit the houses of the gentry and 



730 CURIOSITIES OF 

sing before the closed door. The gentleman thus honored has 
usually taken care to provide a Welsh singer, who. within the 
house, responds in verses supposed to be extemporaneous to the 
singers outside, and the contest goes on until the singer inside 
is unable to continue the versification further, or judiciously 
acknowledges himself vanquished, when the doors are thrown 
open, and all enter and are properly entertained. It is said by 
those conversant with the language and customs of this re- 
markable people that the rejoinders of these peasant poets often 
show great brilliancy of wit and wonderful power of versifica- 
tion. 



N. 

Nativity, Church of the. A church in Bethlehem in Judea, 
built, according to ancient tradition, on the precise spot where 
the stable stood in which Christ was born. The spot was de- 
termined by St. Helena (q. v.) in her pilgrimage to the Holy 
Land. The original church was built by Constantine in the 
year 330. The stable itself is a cave beneath the church. It 
does no violence to our knowledge of the times to believe that 
a cave may have been used for stabling purposes. Part of the 
masonry of Constantine's church is still extant, but most of the 
older work dates from the time of Justinian, about 550. Addi- 
tions and alterations have been made from time to time since 
then until the church as it stands is practically a mediaeval 
structure. In 1482, for example. King Edward TV. of England 
contributed the lead to make a new roof. The lead roof lasted 
for two centuries, and then was melted down by the Moham- 
medans to make bullets. However, another roof was soon pro- 
vided. 

In any case the church is a venerable building, and has wit- 
nessed some stirring scenes. In it Baldwin the Crusader w^as 
crowned King of Jerusalem. 

The grotto of the Nativity is reached by a flight of steps from 
the chancel. Originally it was simply a natural cave in the 
limestone rock. Now^ little of the native rock is seen. Marble 
slabs cover the floor and line the walls. The ceiling, which is 
about ten feet high, is resplendent with thirty-two brass lamps. 
Their light enables us to examine the many pictures, portraying 
scenes in the life of Jesus, which the devotion of Christians has 
hung about the walls ; but these pictures are generally very poor 
as specimens of art. At the east end of the cave there is a 
small recess in the rock, before which hang fifteen lamps. In 
the floor of this recess a bright silver star is inlaid ; it is nearly 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 731 

all worn away by the constant kissing it receives. Around the 
star is an inscription in Latin, which tells us that " Here, of the 
Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ was born." 

Turning just a little to the right from this Place of the Star, 
and descending a few steps, we are in a small chamber called the 
Grotto of the Manger. A brilliant silver star marks the spot 
where Christ is said to have been born. On a neighboring altar 
the Wise Men are said to have presented their gifts. The spot 
where the manger stood is also marked by a marble monument. 
But the original manger is said to have been transported to 
Rome. (See Presepio.) 

The church of the Nativity draws numerous pilgrimages at 
the Christmas season. Catholics, Greeks, and Armenians all wor- 
ship here, under the supervision of the Turkish guardians. 
Luckily, the Greeks and the Armenians, following the Old 
Style, have a different date for Christmas from the Catholics. 
On Christmas Eve (New Style) the Christians in Jerusalem 
gather together and flock out of the city with their faces set for 
Bethlehem, five miles away. As they reach the end of their 
march the people of Bethlehem will come out to meet them, and 
then, preceded by gayly attired wand-bearing heralds, and fol- 
lowed by an immense throng of men, women, and children, they 
march towards the church of the Nativity. 

There midnight mass will be celebrated, while armed Turkish 
soldiers in full uniform of red fezzes, blue jackets, and baggy 
trousers stand on guard beside the altar. 

With this visit and mass in the grotto the Christmas Eve cere- 
monies end. On Christmas Day the regular Roman Catholic 
service is held in the same church, and the remainder of the day 
is spent in merrymaking. 

The Turkish soldiers who guard the holy relics during the 
ceremonies are not mere figure-heads. That the members of 
the various Christian sects in the East are not over-friendly to 
each other is well known, and the soldiers are considered abso- 
lutely essential to guard against an outbreak of fanaticism. 

The trouble lies in the fact that each sect claims possession 
of the holy places, and naturaily regards any other sect which 
worships in them as an interloper. Thanks, however, to the 
vigilance of the soldiers and the other authorities, no serious 
outbreaks have ever arisen at this season, and as the years 
pass there are many indications that an amicable understanding 
will be finally arrived at. 

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. A feast kept by both 
the Greeks and the Latins on September 8. It is also one of the 
black-letter days of the Anglican calendar. The exact date of 



732 CURIOSITIES OF 

its institution cannot be fixed, but it was known in the ninth 
century, and it had come into general use by the twelfth. It is 
the least important of all the feasts in honor of Mary, partly be- 
cause birthdays are not as a rule held to be as sacred as death- 
days, and partly because, as the Church acknowledges, there is 
really nothing authentic preserved as to either the date or the 
place of her birth. That she was the child of St. Anne and St. 
Joachim is, however, generally agreed. (See Anne, St.) 

New Year's Day. (Fr. Le Jour de VAn, or Ze Jour 
d'Etrennes ; It. Capo d' Anno ; Ger. Neujahr.') In all Christian 
countries this is now nominally celebrated on the 1st of January. 
But the 1st of January in the Gregorian calendar (see Calendar) 
occurs twelve days earlier than in the Julian : hence Eussia and 
Greece, which still retain the latter, celebrate January 1 on our 
January 13. Even this comparative uniformity among civilized 
nations was not attained at a bound. 

The ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians began their 
year at the autumnal equinox, September 22, and the Greeks of 
the time of Solon at the winter solstice, December 21. But in 
the time of Pericles, in B.C. 432, the Greeks changed the date to 
the summer solstice, June 21. 

The Eomans reckoned the beginning of the year from the 
winter solstice until Julius Caesar in his reform of the calendar 
changed it to the Ist of January. The Jews began and still 
begin their civil year with the 1st of the month Tisri, which 
roughly corresponds to our September. But in their ecclesiastical 
reckoning the year dates from the vernal equinox, March 22. 
As this is astronomically the beginning of spring, the date is a 
logical one, and that or the 25th of March (twenty-five being a 
more fully rounded number) was accepted generally by Christian 
nations in mediaeval times. 

In England, December 25 was New Year's Day until the time 
of William the Conqueror. His coronation happened to occur 
on January 1. Hence the year was ordered to commence on 
that day. But the English gradually fell into unison with the 
rest of Christendom and began the year with the 25th of March. 
The Gregorian calendar in 1582 restored January 1 as the gate- 
way of the year. Catholic countries adopted the change imme- 
diately. Protestant countries were recalcitrant. It was not 
until 1752 that England acquiesced. 

Among the Eomans, after the reformation of the calendar, the 
first day of January, as well as the entire month, was dedicated 
to the eponymic god Janus. He was represented with two faces, 
one looking forward, the other backward, to indicate that he 
stood between the old and the new year, with a regard to both. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 733 

Throughout January the Eomans offered sacrifices to Janus 
upon twelve altars, and on the first day of that month they were 
careful so to regulate their conduct that their every word and 
act should be a happy augury for all the ensuing days of the year. 

Ovid and other Latin writers of the Empire allude to the 
suspension of all litigation and strife, the reconciliation of dif- 
ferences between friends, the smoking altars and the white-robed 
processions to the Capitol, upon the first day of Janus, or New 
Year's Day as we now call it. Thej^ also tell of the exchanging 
of visits, the giving and receiving of presents, or strence, the 
masquerading and the feasting, with which in their time the day 
was celebrated throughout the Eoman Empire. 

The strence were not only exchanged between relatives and 
friends, but were exacted by the Emperors from their subjects. 
Eventually they became so onerous a burden to the people that 
Claudius limited their cost by a decree. 

It was on account of the orgies which accompanied the re- 
currence of the winter solstice not only among the Eomans 
but among the Teutonic races that the early Christians looked 
with scant favor upon the whole season. By the fifth century, 
however, the 25th of December had become a fixed festival 
commemorative of our Lord's Nativity, whereupon the 1st of 
January assumed a speciallj' sacred character as the octave of 
Christmas Day and the anniversary of Christ's circumcision. 
As such it still holds a place in the calendars of the various 
branches of the Eastern and Western Churches, but only as a 
feast of subordinate importance. 

The first mention of the feast in Christian literature occurs in 
Canon 17 of a Council which met at Tours in 567. " In order," 
so the canon runs, " to tread under foot the customs of the 
heathen, our fathers ordained that private litanies should be 
held at the beginning of January, psalms sung in the churches, 
and, at the eighth hour on the first of the month, the Mass of the 
Circumcision, pleasing to God." From this canon it appears that 
the feast was already an established one. Other authorities 
show that it was originally kept as a fast, evidently as a pro- 
test against the immoral excesses of the heathen. 

The custom of exchanging presents on New Year's, though in 
Anglo-Saxon countries it has been largely superseded by the 
giving of Christmas-gifts, is still retained in France and the 
Latin countries. It is one of the oldest and was one of the most 
universal observances of the season. 

The Persians celebrated the beginning of the year by ex- 
changing presents of eggs. The ancient Druids distributed, as 
New Year's gifts, among the early Britons, branches of the sacred 
mistletoe cut with peculiarly solemn ceremonies on the previous 



734 CURIOSITIES OF 

night from the oak-tree in a forest dedicated to the gods. (See 
Mistletoe.) Among the Saxons of the Northern nations the 
new year was ushered in by friendly gifts. 

According to Matthew Paris, Henry III. followed the imperial 
Eoman precedent of extorting New Year's gifts from his sub- 
jects. The fashion, once set, continued until the reign of Charles 
I. By the time of Henry YII. the reception of the New Year's 
gifts presented by the king and queen to each other and by their 
household and courtiers to the royal pair had become reduced to 
a solemn formula. 

Agnes Strickland, in her " Lives of the Queens of England" 
(1864, vol. ii. p. 83), quotes the following extract from a manu- 
script of Henry YII.'s Norroy herald, in possession of Peter Le 
Neve, Esq. : " On the day of the New Year, when the king came 
to his foot-sheet, his usher of his chamber-door said to him, ' Sire, 
here is a New Year's gift coming from the queen ;' then the king 
replied, 'Let it come in.' Then the king's usher let the queen's 
messenger come within the yate'' (meaning the gate of the railing 
which surrounded the royal bed, instances of which are familiar 
to the public in the state bedrooms at Hampton Court to this 
day, and it is probable that the scene was very similar), " Henry 
YII. sitting at the foot of the bed in his dressing-gown, the 
officers of his bed-chamber having turned the top sheet smoothly 
down to the foot of the bed when the royal personage rose. Tiie 
queen, in like manner, sat at her foot-sheet, and received the 
king's New Year's gift within the gate of her bed-railing. When 
this formal exchange of presents had taken place between the 
king and his consort, they received, seated in the same manner, 
the New Year's gifts of their nobles. -And,' adds tlie herald, 
assuming the first person, '■ I shall report to the queen's grace 
and them that be about her, what rewards are to be given to 
them that bring her grace New^ Year's gifts, for I trow they are 
not so good as those of the king.' " 

There is in the possession of the Marquis of Bath, at Longleat, a 
manuscript, which contains a list of moneys given to King 
Henry YIII. in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, as New 
Year's gifts. They are from archbishops, bishops, noblemen, 
doctors, gentlemen, etc. The amount which the king's grace 
complacently pocketed on this occasion was £792 lOs. 10<i. 
{Notes and Queries, Fourth Series, vol. xi. p. 8.) 

Honest old Latimer, however, says Hone (" Every Day Book," 
1836, vol. i. p. 7), instead of presenting Henry YIII. with a purse 
of gold, put into the king's hand a New Testament, with a leaf 
conspicuously doubled down at Hebrews xiii. 4, which, on refer- 
ence, will be found to have a certain appropriateness to the mon- 
arch's domestic failings. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 735 

Good Queen Bess, as that very designation implies, knew the 
way to the hearts of her subjects, and, taking it, had her reward. 
Their voices, their swords, and their purses were alike at her 
command. Presents came to her in a profusion unknown to any 
of her predecessors. Every 'New Year's Day saw the royal 
purse replenished with gold, the royal wardrobe enriched with 
articles of ladies' gear, from embroidered gowns and mantles, to 
petticoats, stockings, garters, and smocks, and the royal larder 
stocked with fat oxen and sheep, geese and turkeys, swans and 
capons, fruit and preserves, marchpanes and sweetmeats ; while 
the gem-loving queen's eyes were gladdened with the sight of 
necklaces and bracelets, rings, chains, and all sorts of dainty 
devices in jewellers' ware. 

King James had no cause to complain of his new subjects' 
illiberality for the first two or three years of his reign, at least 
so far as New Year's gifts went ; but after a few years' acquaint- 
ance their generosity waned, for Carleton complains that even 
the accustomed purse of gold was hardly to be had without ask- 
ing for it. The Earl of Huntingdon, however, stood by the old 
custom, and put upon record the proper manner of presenting a 
New Year's gift to his majesty. " You must buy," he says, " a 
new purse of about five shillings price, and put thereunto twenty 
pieces of new gold of twenty shillings apiece, and go to the 
presence-chamber, where the court is upon New Year's Day, in 
the morning about eight o'clock, and deliver the purse and the 
gold unto my Lord Chamberlain. Then you must go down to 
the jewel-house for a ticket, to receive eighteen shillings and 
sixpence as a gift for your pains, and give sixpence to the boy 
for your ticket. Then go to Sir William Yeall's oflice and show 
your ticket, and receive your eighteen shillings and sixpence. 
Then go to the jewel-house again, and take a piece of plate of 
thirty ounces' weight, and mark it ; and then in the afternoon 
you may go and fetch it away, and then give the gentleman who 
delivers it you one pound in gold, and give to the boy two shil- 
lings, and to the porter sixpence." At this annual give-and-take 
game the crown got the advantage. 

The custom of presenting the sovereign with New Year's gifts 
went out with Oliver Cromwell, and did not come back with the 
Eesto ration. 

The passing around and drinking of the wassail cup (see 
Wassail), after the manner of the more modern loving-cup, had 
gone out of fashion at court before the time of Queen Elizabeth, 
and had been succeeded by the cleanlier one of individual cups. 
But wassail was still drunk, and indeed New Year's Day has 
never dropped its convivial aspect. 

On the eve of New Year it was long a general custom to 



736 CURIOSITIES OF 

unbar the house-door with great formality to " let out the Old 
and let in the JS'ew." English dissenters and certain evangelical 
sects favor a midnight service at their places of worship. But 
the custom of widest extension is that of ringing the church 
bells. 

King out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 
The flying cloud, the frosty light ; 
The year is dying in the night ; 
Ring out, wild beDs, and let him die. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new, 
Ring, happy bells, across the snow : 
The year is going, let him go ; 

Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

In Scotland, as in France, New Year's Day lords it over 
Christmas as the most important festival of the year. Its eve 
is known as Hogmanay, and the two days together are often 
called the Daft (or Crazy) Days. 

The meaning of the word Hogmanay has been a sad puzzle to 
antiquarians, and its etymology is still an undecided question. 
According to some authorities, the word is derived from the 
phrase Au qui menez (" To the mistletoe bring"), which the 
mummers formerly cried in France. Another derivation is from 
Hoggunott, Hogenat, or Hoggnight, the old Scandinavian term 
for the night preceding the feast of Yule, and so called in allusion 
to the animals that were slaughtered on the occasion for sacri- 
ficial and festive purposes. Some consider it to be a corruption 
of Au gueux menez, — that is, " Bring to the beggars ;" and a fur- 
ther explanation combines the word with another sung along 
with it in chorus, and suggests that "Hogmanay, trollolay," are 
a corruption of the French Homme est ne, trois rois allots (" A 
man is born, three kings are come"), in allusion to the birth 
of Christ and the visit of the wise men to Bethlehem, who in 
mediasval times were known as the Three Kings. All these 
derivations, however, are equally pure conjecture ; and it is to be 
hoped that at some time or other the question will be satisfac- 
torily answered. 

In retired and primitive towns of Scotland it is customary, 
says Mr. Chambers, in his " Popular Ehymes," for the children 
of the poorer class of people on the morning of the last day of 
the year, or Hogmanay, to get themselves swaddled in a great 
sheet, doubled up in front so as to form a vast pocket, and then 
to go along the streets in little bands, calling at the doors of the 
wealthier inhabitants for a dole of wheaten bread. Each child 
gets one quadrant section of oat cake (sometimes, in the case of 
particular favorites, improved by an addition of cheese), and 
this is called their " hogmanaj^" In expectation of the large 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 737 

demands thus made upon them, the housewives busy themselves 
for several days beforehand in preparing a sufficient quantity of 
cake. As soon as the children arrive at the door of a house they 
immediately cry out as loudly as they can, " Hogmanay," which 
is in itself a sufficient announcement of their demands. There 
are, however, other exclamations which are frequently used. 
One of these is " Hogmanay, trollolay." A favorite rhyme, too, 
used on the occasion is — 

Rise up, gude-wife, and shake your feathers, 
Dinna think that we are beggars ; 
We are bairns come to play 
And to seek our hogmanay. 

Another visitor whom every family expects on this night is 
the First-Foot (q. v.), a name given to the person who first sets 
foot over the threshold after the clock strikes twelve. First- 
footers often go out in parlies, and are welcomed to the lun 
within even if they have been anticipated by some prompter 
visitor. . 

Hence in Edinburgh and other large cities the streets in old 
days were crowded on ]^ew Year's Eve and until the sma' hours 
of New Year's morning. The noise was tremendous, particularly 
in the great thoroughfares, moving lanterns glared everywhere 
as parties of first-footers pressed up or down, carrying a het-pint, 
or bowl of hot toddy, which each offered the other with "A gude 
New Year!" Any girl caught out in the streets, even if she had 
an escort, might be kissed by any youth. Good-natured — even 
if not always sober — revelry prevailed everywhere. But these 
New Year's Eve rejoicings got a check in Edinburgh on Decem- 
ber 31, 1811. A large band of toughs seized the opportunity to 
waylay and rob the better class of citizens. Every well-dressed 
person was surrounded by parties of this band and knocked 
down unless he surrendered. Two men, including one police- 
man, were killed, and several others wounded. The savage band 
managed to keep possession of the streets in defiance of the civil 
power till four o'clock in the morning, and reaped a rich harvest 
of spoils. The ringleaders were subsequently arrested, and three 
of them were publicly executed on April 22, 1812. But good 
citizens became scarcer on the streets on ensuing Hogmanay 
nights. 

Another New Year's Eve custom is said to linger around 
Bromyard, in the Worcestershire border of Herefordshire. As 
the hour of midnight is on the strike on the 31st of December, 
and the last carol is dying away, a promiscuous rush is made to 
the nearest spring to snatch the " cream of the year," the first 
pitcherful of the new year, and with it the prospect of the best 

47 



738 CURIOSITIES OF 

luck. The same excitement goes on in the dwellings of South 
Scotland at the same hour, when, as the poet hath it, — 

Twal struck — twa neebor hizzies raise 

And lilting gaed a sad gate ; 
The flower of the well to our house gaes, 

And I'll the bonniest lad get. 

" Burning out the old year" is a custom that still has its sur- 
vivals in Lanarkshire and elsewhere. For this purpose, during 
the last day of the year, a large quantity of fuel is collected, 
consisting of branches of trees, brushwood, and coals, and placed 
in a heap at the " cross," and at about nine o'clock at night the 
lighting of the fire is commenced, surrounded by a large crowd 
of lookers-on, who each think it a duty to cast into the flaming 
mass some additional portion of material. 

New Year's Day itself is spent in visiting and feasting. The 
Christmas dinner of English folk is eaten on this day by their 
Scotch compatriots ; the master brews a bowl of punch or toddy, 
and passes glasses around to the servants, and all unite in drink- 
ing and pledging good health and happiness to one another. In 
the evening dances, balls, and raffles are the popular amuse- 
ments. One of the songs always heard on these festive occa- 
sions begins, — 

Here's to the year that's awa' ! 

We'll drink it in strong and in sma', 

And to each bonnie lassie that we dearly lo'ed 

In the days o' the year that's awa'. 

Scotland has well been called the " Land o' Cakes," for nowhere 
else, Germany excepted, is there such a variety of confectionery 
and pastry as in Scotch bakers' shops. The short-bread, often 
known as " Pitcaithly bannocks," is highly ornamented with 
sugar and iced mottoes, "A Happy New Year" and "A Merrie 
Auld Yule ;" then the rye loaves, popular in the Thrums district, 
black and rich, filled with fruit and peel, and the Scotch bun, com- 
posed entirely of eggs, chopped fruit, and peel, encased in a 
crust which is not eaten, much like the English simnel cakes. 
Fancy tarts and pastries of all kinds are bought in the greatest 
j)rofusion. 

It is said in Scotland that those who desire to learn what fate 
or fortune the new year has in store for them may do so by con- 
sulting the Bible on New Year's morning before breakfast. The 
sacred book must be laid upon a table, and those who wish to 
consult it must open it at random and place a finger upon one 
or other of the chapters at which it is opened. This chapter is 
read, and is believed to describe, in some way, the happiness or 
misery during the ensuing year of the person making the trial. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 739 

Among manj^ other old superstitions associated with New 
Year's is a belief that if a lamp or a candle be taken out of a 
house on that day some member of the family will die within a 
twelvemonth, while to throw out dirty water, ashes, or anything 
whatever, no matter how worthless, is regarded as certain to 
bring ill luck during the whole of that year. 

From old Dutch times to the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury New Year's Day in New York was devoted to the universal 
interchange of visits. Every door was thrown wide open. It 
was a breach of etiquette to omit any acquaintance in these 
annual calls, when old friendships were renewed and family dif- 
ferences amicably settled. A hearty welcome was extended even 
to strangers of presentable appearance. 

The following is an entry in Tyrone Power the actor's Diary 
for January 1, 1834 : " On this day from an early hour every 
door in New York is open and all the good things possessed by 
the inmates paraded in lavish profusion. Every sort of vehicle 
is put in requisition. At an early hour a gentleman of whom I 
had a slight knowledge entered my room, accompanied by an 
elderly person I had never before seen, and who, on being named, 
excused himself for adopting such a frank mode of making my 
acquaintance, which, he was pleased to add, he much desired, 
and at once requested me to fall in with the custom of the day, 
whose privilege he had thus availed himself of, and accompany 
him on a visit to his family. 

" I was the last man on earth likely to decline an offer made 
in such a spirit ; so, entering his carriage, which was waiting, 
we drove to his house on Broadway, where, after being pre- 
sented to a very amiable lady, his wife, and a pretty, gentle- 
looking young girl, his daughter, I partook of a sumptuous lun- 
cheon, drank a glass of champagne, and, on the arrival of other 
visitors, made my bow, well pleased with my visit. 

" My host now begged me to make a few calls with him, ex- 
plaining as we drove along the strict observances paid to this 
day throughout the State, and tracing the excellent custom to 
the early Dutch colonists. I paid several calls in company with 
my new friend, and at each place met a hearty welcome, when 
my companion suggested that I might have some compliments 
to make on my own account, and so, leaving me, begged me to con- 
sider his carriage perfectly at my disposal. I left a card or two 
and made a couple of hurried visits, then returned to my hotel to 
think over the many beneficial effects likely to grow out of such 
a charitable custom, which makes even the stranger sensible of 
the benevolent influence of this kindly day, and to wish for its 
continued observance." 

At the period of which Power speaks there were great feasts 



740 CURIOSITIES OF 

spread in many houses, and the traditions of tremendous Dutch 
eating and drinking were faithfully observed. Special houses 
were noted for particular forms of entertainment. At one it 
was eggnog; at another, rum punch ; at this one, pickled oys- 
ters ; at that, boned turkey, or marvellous chocolate, or perfect 
Mocha coffee, or, for the select cognoscenti, a drop of old Madeira 
as delicate in flavor as the texture of the glass from which it 
was sipped. At all houses there were the New Year's cakes, in 
the form of an Egyptian cartouch, and in later and more degen- 
erate days relays of champagne-bottles appeared, — the coming 
in of the lower empire. 

Then followed the gradual breaking down of all the lines of 
conventionality into a wild and unseemly riot of visits. New 
Year's Day took on the character of a rabid and untamed race 
against time. A procession each of whose component parts was 
made up of two or three young men in an open barouche, with 
a pair of steaming horses and a driver more or less under the 
influences of the hilarity of the day, would rattle from one house 
to another all day long. The visitors would jump out of the 
carriage, rush into the house, and reappear in a miraculously 
short space of time. The ceremony of calling was a burlesque. 
There was a noisy and hilarious greeting, a glass of wine was 
swallowed hurriedly, everybody shook hands all around, and the 
callers dashed out and rushed into the carriage and were driven 
rapidly to the next house. But more serious than this was the 
manner in which society women found their houses invaded by 
people with whom they had very slight and sometimes no 
acquaintance whatever on the first day of the year. The hum- 
blest employee of a great commercial house felt at entire liberty 
to call upon the wife of the head of the firm, assuming that his 
salary entitled him to the acquaintanceship. Politicians of all 
ranks and degrees looked in upon people who they thought could 
be useful to them. The great army of social upstarts and snobs 
utilized the day for furthering their claims to recognition. 
Enough complications and embarrassments, in fact, were woven 
on the first day of the year to employ the tact and resources of 
society leaders for several months afterward in the work of 
undoing. 

A reaction naturally began, which, gathering force with every 
succeeding year, ended by practically abolishing the custom of 
New Year's calls. 

The Old World custom of sitting up on New Year's night to 
see the old year out and the new year in is perhaps more general 
in the United States than anywhere. In many large cities the 
new year is rung in from some famous local belfry, — that of 
Independence Hall, for example, in Philadelphia, and of Trinity 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 74l 

Church in New York, — attracting huge crowds that blow tin 
horns and roar and shout, the din being increased by whistles 
from steam-engines, afloat and ashore. 

Nowhere is New Year celebrated with greater solemnity than 
at the courts of the various rulers of continental Europe. True, 
in some instances — as, for instance, at Berlin and at Vienna — 
Christmas-trees and distributions of gifts are arranged for the 
royal children a week earlier. But this in no sense diminishes 
the importance of the New Year's Day solemnities, and if Christ- 
mas has gradually become the annual festival of the family, 
New Year's Day continues to remain the principal feast of the 
year at court, as well as in political, military, and administrative 
service. 

It speaks well for these monarchs of the Old World that with 
the solitary exception of King Leopold, who holds religion in 
very small esteem, there is not one of them that does not com- 
mence the new year with an appeal to the Almighty for strength, 
guidance, and blessing. In England, however, the queen is the 
only member of the royal family who ever dreams of attending 
divine service on New Year's morning. 

At the courts where what is known as the Orthodox Greek 
faith is professed, and where, consequently, the old calendar is 
still in force. New Year's Day is celebrated a fortnight later. 

King Humbert, who owing to the ban of the Church is unable 
to indulge in a high pontifical mass, begins New Year's Day by 
attending a low mass said by his chaplain in the chapel that has 
been arranged at the Quirinal. After mass is over, king and 
queen stand on the dais under the canopy in front of their chair of 
state in the throne-room, to receive with due formality the various 
parliamentary, military, judicial, and administrative delegations 
commissioned to lay at the feet of their majesties the good wishes 
of the various bodies which they represent. Later the king be- 
gins to stroll about the various apartments, and a good deal of 
freedom and abandon prevails until the supper-hour is announced. 
The royal party then march in procession to a small supper-room 
and with the ambassadors and their wives take their places at 
tables adorned with that magnificent golden plate for which the 
house of Savoy is so famous, while the remainder of the guests 
rush pell-mell and in a very undignified fashion to the bufi'ets, 
which are literally taken by storm and quickly devastated, so far 
as everything in the nature of food or drink is concerned. 

At Paris, in spite of the overthrow of the monarchy, the 
principal features of the ancient celebration of the New Year 
have been retained. True, there is no divine service, since the 
President does not claim to be " the anointed of the Lord ;" but 
he compromises the matter by receiving first and foremost the 



742 CURIOSITIES OF 

Papal Nuncio, who, at the head of the diplomatic corps, presents 
the congratulations and good wishes of the latter in a formal 
address, to which the President makes an equally ceremonious 
response. As soon as the foreign envoys, all of whom are in 
full uniform, have taken their departure, the Presidents of the 
Senate and of the Chamber of Deputies arrive, their carriages 
escorted by squadrons of cavalry. Then follow the heads of the 
judiciary, the principal officers of the army and navy, and dele- 
gations from the Academy, from the clergy, and from all the 
various branches of the political and administrative system. As 
soon as this is over, the President, who has been in full evening 
dress ever since the early morning, drives off with the military 
officers of his household to return the calls of the Presidents of 
the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, these being the only 
two visits that he is called upon to pay to members of his own 
nationality throughout the entire year. 

Such is the official recognition of the day. In the popular 
eye New Year's Day is the greatest festival of the year. It is 
in France what Christmas is in England and America, the day 
for giving and receiving presents (known as etrennes, from the 
Latin strence). The abuse of this practice is far more deplora- 
ble than at the Anglo-Saxon Christmas. The etrennes have 
nearly reached the climax of representing nothing more than 
such a conventional sense of duty as the leaving of a card be- 
tokens here. It is even said that they are constantly transferred 
from hand to hand till at last they may circulate back into the 
hands of the original givers, having performed precisely the 
same formal office in discharging the debts of social convention 
that a five-franc piece performs when it likewise, after passing 
through a number of different hands, returns to the coffers of 
the bank which issued it. 

Nevertheless accidental abuses do not prevent this from being 
one of the most poetical and beautiful anniversaries in the French 
calendar. It is the great family day. In the morning the chil- 
dren jump up and (after examining their stockings to see what 
St. Nicholas has brought them) rush off to the chamber of their 
parents to salute them and offer their good wishes for the new 
year. If a member of the family has died during the year, all 
the near relatives assemble at the grave early in the morning, 
renewing flowers and ornaments. After the mid-day meal the 
younger members of the family call upon the older ones, and in 
the evening they all meet for dinner at the home of the oldest 
member, who is considered the head of the family. When the 
French speak of their family it is in a broad sense, and includes 
all the relatives. 

While few, if any, presents are given at Christmas, friends 



I 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 743 

and servants are remembered with gifts at l^ew Year's. Gifts 
of flowers and confectionery are received by the ladies. Young 
men in society are expected to call at the homes of their lady 
friends, and hither to bring or send flowers or confectionery. 
For the young man with a small salary this is a great demand ; 
still, if he has been receiving hospitalities all the year here is an 
opportunity to show his appreciation. The French people do 
not give their children much candy, but at New Year children 
and older people indulge in this luxury, and there are few ladies 
who do not receive one or more bonbonnieres filled with candy, 
largely chocolate, for the French run to this kind of confec- 
tionery. 

All day long Paris is noisy with crowds going to and fro. The 
fashionable parts of the city are a forest of carriages, buggies, 
and hacks, standing at every door, and whirling back and forth 
in feverish haste. The children, gayly decked out with ribbons 
and flowers, wander with their mothers or their nurses along the 
streets, and gaze with loud delight into the dazzling windows of 
the shops. And, indeed, nothing can be more brilliant than the 
shop-windows of Paris on this day, especially those of the con- 
fectioners, the toy-sellers, and the jewellers. 

While all these excitements are going on in one part of Paris, 
over the river the students are having the jolliest of holidays. 
They are dancing and singing in little halls arranged for the 
purpose; they are partaking of sumptuous dinners and wines at 
the restaurants ; they are promenading on the boulevard with 
their sweethearts ; they are up in rooms in the top stories of the 
high old-fashioned houses of the Latin Quarter, playing on fiddles, 
and telling stories, and singing songs, and acting laughable farces. 

On New Year's Day the beggars swarm out from every nook 
and corner of Paris, for it is the one day of the long year when 
they may beg in freedom. Most of them catch the merry spirit 
of the day, and gayly sing their petitions in your face, or dance 
a jig for a sou, with a cheerful good humor and forgetfulness of 
trouble which only a hardened heart could resist. Eagged little 
fellows, scarcely large enough t9 walk, toddle up, and, with a pert 
swing of their torn caps, demand a gift as if such a thing as 
a refusal had never repulsed them ; and if, perchance, they do 
not get the sou-piece they ask for, off they scamper, singing a 
street- ditty, and carolling up to the next comer with unchilled 
impudence. 

The hardest-working of the Paris people on New Year's Day, 
and for some days thereafter, are the post-office clerks. It is 
the universal custom in France to embrace the occasion of this 
anniversary to send cards of compliment to all one's friends, in 
whatever part of the country they may be. Thus, a gentleman 



744 CURIOSITIES OF 

or lady in Paris is deluged with hundreds of cards, sometimes, 
from country brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins, 
old neighbors, and absent acquaintances, and sends out to each 
and all cards in return. So it is that the post-offices are choked 
up for a long time, and regular letters become very irregular 
indeed. 

New Year's Eve, or St. Sylvester's Night, is celebrated in 
many German cities, especially in Berlin, by a curious bit of 
horse-play. Everybody is privileged to bonnet with a blow of 
the fist any citizen who ventures into the street after dark with 
a high silk hat. 

The unfortunate visitor from the provinces, or the stranger 
ignorant of the peculiar customs of the day, strolls blithely down 
the street, clad in the garments usual to elegant civilization, on 
his head the silk hat. Suddenly a cry reaches his ears, "Hut 
ab!" Who can be shouting for the removal of a hat? The 
shout is repeated. From here and there men are hurrying 
towards him. Pshaw ! surely they cannot be telling him to take 
off his hat. But now from all about comes the sound of voices, 
crying, " Hut ab ! Hut ab !" 

The cry becomes a roar, as voice after voice joins its volume to 
the chorus, " Hut ab ! Hut ab !" In an instant a crowd has gath- 
ered, a mob of shrieking, laughing, gesticulating ruffians, yelling, 
" Hut ab ! Hut ab ! Hut ab !" And before the astonished stranger 
can begin to understand what all this awful din may betoken, to 
give ])oint to the words sticks and fists rain blows upon his head. 
The offending hat is hammered down over its owner's ears farther 
and lower, until its rim bursts and its crown flies off, and it 
dangles, a bedraggled collar, on his shoulder. Then the exultant 
mob, with no more occasion for howling " Hut ab !" howls in 
applause of its own success. 

The stranger, not knowing what catastrophes may follow on a 
beginning so frightful, enraged, amazed, full of fears, flees to the 
shelter of the policeman near by. When the assaulted wretch 
has told his tale, with many a gesture indicating the mangled 
remains of his hat, the guardian of the peace offers him as the 
only consolation,^ " Wesshalb gehen Sie denn aus ?" In other 
words. " Do not wear a silk hat in the street on St. Sylvester's 
Day." 

In his boyhood, and even in his earlier monarchial manhood. 
Emperor William II. used to sally out incognito on New Year's 
Eve to take part in this popular diversion. But he has aban- 
doned it since he encountered an old gentleman who, with the 
view of getting even with the young men who had destroyed his 
top hats in previous years, had equipped himself with a sort of 
leather skull-cap studded with nails, points upward. The conse- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 745 

quence was that when the imperial fist came down with crush- 
ing force on the inviting-looking hat it encountered the nails, 
which lacerated his hand in so serious a manner as to necessitate 
the attendance of a surgeon. 

This custom of the demolition of high hats has been traced 
back to 1848. It had its origin in a commemoration of the riots 
on St. Sylvester's Day in that year, the lower classes having at 
that time resorted to this forcible method of expressing their 
hostility to the bourgeoisie, of whom the high hat was distinctive. 

Happily, in other parts of Germany there are customs which 
mark St. Sylvester's Day more courteously. One most pleasant 
one is found in the Ehenisb provinces. A gentleman is walking 
in the street, when suddenly he hears spoken closely to his ear 
the words " Prosit Neujahr !" the greeting of the day. By the 
law of the day he is thus made captive and must pay ransom. 

The friend who has marked the unsuspecting one on the 
street, himself unobserved, has followed cautiously, and has ap- 
proached stealthily on tiptoe until so close that the salutation 
can be distinctly heard, although softly spoken. The one thus 
saluted unawares must answer by the word "Meister," and ac- 
knowledge the other's sovereignty of the moment by the gift of 
a cigar, a bottle of champagne, or something else conducive to 
the social enjoyment of the occasion. With them, as with us, 
all strive to be first in giving the greeting of the season, but they 
have emphasized the importance of not being tardy by a genial 
system of forfeits to be paid by the unwary or laggard. 

The most charming of the German New Year's customs is one 
observed from time immemorial in Frankfort-on-the-Main. There, 
at the same moment, the whole city salutes itself, — wishes itself 
a happy New Year. 

On the night of December 31 all the city keeps the festival, 
watching the old year out and the new year in. Family parties 
or gatherings of friends are to be found in ever}^ house. Games, 
stories, music, and kindred diversions, with an honorable atten- 
tion to eating and drinking, serve to speed on the last hours of 
the dying year. 

Suddenly, at the exact moment when from the great dome of 
the cathedral the first stroke of midnight sounds its warning, 
every house throws wide open its windows. Forth from the 
casements lean all the dwellers in the town, old and young to- 
gether, each with glass in hand. The glass is raised on high, 
and the words of the toast burst on the astonished air of night 
in one massive tone, born of more than a hundred thousand 
voices, joined in the cry, " Prosit Neujahr !" (" Happy New 
Year!") 

The whole city thus salutes itself with the greeting of the 



746 CURIOSITIES OF 

season, invoking a blessing for the coming year in its first mo- 
ment. The sonorous majesty of the sentiment sends out its 
echoing clamors for a few brief seconds, then ceases. Before 
the last clang of the twelve from the cathedral's dome has melted 
into silence the toast of the hour has been drunk, the windows 
have been closed, and the hush of midnight settles once more 
over the deserted streets of the city. 

The Emperor of Germany invariably begins New Year's Day 
by attending service with his wife and children in the chapel of 
the Old Castle at Berlin at about ten o'clock. Then, at the head 
of all the princes of the blood, and escorted by his generals and 
staff, he marches on i'oot to the Main Guard, which turns out, 
of course, on his arrival. It is composed of the very finest and 
smartest-looking men of the Seventh Eegiment, especially se- 
lected for the occasion. Having received the customary reports 
from the officer in command, he gives the pass- word of the day, 
and then returns to the palace, where a reception of all the prin- 
cipal personages of the realm takes place with great pomp and 
ceremony. The first to pay their respects and to present their 
good wishes for the New Year to the Emperor and Empress, 
who stand on the dais, under a canopy, just in front of their 
thrones in the White Hall of the Old Castle, are their relatives, 
headed as a rule by their mother. 

The imperial couple always descend the steps of the dais to 
greet the illustrious. widow, and then invite her, as well as the 
other princes and princesses of the blood, to take her place 
beside them on the estrade. Next come the foreign ambassadors 
with their ladies and suites, the dean or senior of the diplomatic 
corps remaining at the foot of the throne to present his col- 
leagues as they pass before the Emperor. The latter usually 
addresses to the heads of the various missions a few words, 
which, while sometimes trivial, are often of such importance as 
to disturb the financial equilibrium of the whole of Europe for 
the following week. 

After the diplomatic corps come the great dignitaries of the 
Church, the army, the navy, the judges of the supreme court, 
the rectors of the universities, the ministers of state and the 
heads of their various departments, and finally those who are 
possessed of no ofiice, but merely form part and parcel of the 
court. The scene is brilliant, for, although the reception takes 
place by day, the curtains and blinds are drawn, and the vast 
state apartments are lighted by myriads of wax candles and 
electric globes ; the ladies are all in court dress with long trains, 
and the men in full uniform, the gorgeously colored mediseval 
costume of the university rectors being especially picturesque. 
A grand banquet at court brings the day to a conclusion. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 747 

At Vienna on New Year's Day the Emperor and the arch- 
duchess, representing the Empress, hold what is known as a 
" cercle." Each class of visitors who call to present their good 
wishes for the new year is assigned to a particular apartment, 
the diplomatic corps being relegated to one, the judiciary to 
another, the navy to a third, and so on. The Emperor, escorted 
by the grand officials of his household, enters each apartment 
in turn with the archduchess, and immediately on his being 
announced by the grand master of ceremonies all the ladies 
take up their positions on one side of the room and the men on 
the other. 

The Emperor, with one of his chamberlains, then passes slowly 
along the side of the room where the men are stationed, and 
says a few words to each, while the archduchess, escorted by 
the mistress of the robes to the Empress, does the same on the 
other side. On reaching the farther end the Emperor returns 
along the front rank of the ladies, while the archduchess passes 
in front of the men. As a rule, there is no state banquet at 
Vienna on New Year's Day, the Emperor generally finishing up 
the festival at the palace of one of his numerous kinsmen. 

In Belgium, on St. Sylvester's Day, or New Year's Eve, the 
children strive to secure a " sugar uncle" or "sugar aunt," as the 
relative who falls a victim to their wiles is technically termed. 
On that day all the children of the household enter into a solemn 
conspiracy for the mutual good at the expense of the unwary 
adult whom they may entangle in the meshes of their intrigues. 

They employ every artifice to get one of the older members 
of the household under lock and key. Early on that day the 
keys of all the doors in the house have mysteriously disappeared. 
They have been secreted by the children, who retain them, 
ready for instant use whenever the occasion shall occur. Then 
strictest watch is maintained, to the end that some unsuspecting 
one may be alone in a room. An uncle enters a room to search 
for the paper which he has mislaid. Presto ! There comes a 
pattering rush of feet in the hallway, the door is slammed, the 
key rattles in the lock. The alarmed uncle springs to the door. 

Woe betide him now if he be in a hurry, and if he be ungen- 
erous, for he must yield to the terms of these youthful brigands 
before he can escape. He must solemnly covenant with them 
that he will pay to them whatsoever ransom they may demand 
ere the prison door will swing open. When the prisoner has 
promised all that is asked, the triumphant company restore him 
to liberty. 

New Year's Day is made a happy and merry festival in the 
gloomy old royal palace at Madrid. The queen regent takes 
care that all, down to the humblest of the servants, get a share 



748 CURIOSITIES OF 

in the so-called " aguinaldos," or New Year's bounties, to enable 
them to have their rejoicings and feastings. It is on New Year's 
Eve, however, that the young king and his sisters receive their 
presents beneath a huge Christmas-tree, the tables loaded with 
gifts being arranged by the queen's own hands, while each one 
of the gentlemen and ladies in waiting, and the palace digni- 
taries present, are remembered with some costly token of the 
regent's appreciation of their services. New Year's Day itself 
begins with high mass, celebrated with all the pomp and solemnity 
characteristic of the Catholic Church. 

As soon as that is over, a goodly portion of the day is devoted 
to the reception of an interminable procession of dignitaries, 
ambassadors, and representatives of the great administrative 
and political elements of the kingdom, who arrive from all parts 
of Spain in order to offer to the little king and his estimable 
mother their good wishes. This little king, who wears the uni- 
form of the Eoyal School of Cadets, with the Order of the 
Golden Fleece around his neck, gets very tired of the ceremony 
long before it is all over, and in past years his mother used to 
experience the greatest difficulty in preventing him from re- 
lieving what ap2)eared to him the dreary monotony of the occa- 
sion by tweaking the queue of the Chinese ambassador, or from 
seating himself astride of the great gold lions that constitute so 
notable an ornament of his throne. 

In rural Russia New Year's begins as pre-eminently a juve- 
nile festival. The boys rise with the sun, fill their pockets with 
dried peas and wheat, and go in bands from house to house. As 
doors are never locked, it is easy for them to effect an entrance. 
They use the dried peas upon their enemies, the gentler wheat 
upon their friends, hurling the first and sprinkling the latter upon 
all whom they find asleep. 

After breakfast the handsomest horse in the village, its trap- 
pings gayly decorated with evergreens and berries, is led to the 
house of the nobleman, followed by the pea- and wheat-shooters 
of the early morning. The lord admits horse and guests to the 
parlor, where all his family are gathered. This is the greeting 
of the peasants, old and young, to their lord and master. The 
origin of this custom is shrouded in mysterj^, but it is supposed 
to date from Biblical times. The persons who enter the house 
with the horse are rewarded with small silver coins, which are 
usually bestowed by the children of the household. 

Next comes a procession of real animals, such as the ox, cow, 
goat, and hog, led by children. These quadrupeds, like the 
horse, are decorated with evergreens and berries. They do not 
enter, but pass slowly in front of the house, that the master and 
his family may view the strange procession from the windows. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 749 

Then old women appear, bringing the different barn-yard fowls, 
which are also decked with evergreens and berries. These are 
intended as presents for the master. 

The peasants believe that the miracle of the feast of Cana of 
Galilee can be repeated, if the people only have faith, as the old 
year ushers in the new. At precisely the midnight hour, or as 
nearly as the clocks of the village reckon that time, men, women, 
and children stand around a large jar filled with water which 
they anxiously watch to see if it will turn into wine. Year after 
year the same performance is enacted, and always with the same 
result. This superstition is current also in many parts of Ger- 
many. 

The second day of the new year is devoted to paying visits, a 
pleasure which the children share with their parents. The visit- 
ing over, parents and children separate, the older people to enjoy 
themselves in their own way, and the young people to follow 
their example, — both parties usually indulging in sleigh -riding. 

The young folks always try to get beyond the reach of the 
older people. During the attempt many ludicrous scenes occur. 
For instance, the village youths and maidens, in their wild 
efforts to get beyond the reach of parental control, frequently 
have their sleighs upset, when a general scramble ensues, and 
the vehicles are righted amid much merriment. This amuse- 
ment concludes the holiday season. 

In China and Japan it is the universal rule that all debts must 
be paid and accounts settled with the ending of the old year. 
Japan among its recent adoptions of European customs numbers 
the Gregorian calendar, wherefore its year begins when ours 
does. The Chinese, however, reckon it from the first moon after 
the sun enters Aquarius. This happens not earher than January 
21 nor later than February 19. The holiday is a legal one for 
three days only, but its celebration actually continues much 
longer. Many shops are closed for a fortnight. 

During the three days of legitimate holiday-making the cities 
assume a very gay appearance. The houses are decorated with 
fanciful lanterns, large sprays 6f artificial flowers, and strips of 
red paper with mottoes on them which are pasted around and 
above the doors. Here and there one sees blue papers among 
the red ones, which denote that during the past year there has 
been a death in the house. 

The streets are thronged by a gorgeously dressed crowd, most 
of them attired in brightly colored silks and satins ; for the rich 
don their best, and even the very poor, who are in miserable rags 
all the rest of the year, generally contrive to hire or to take out 
of pawn fine clothes for this occasion. If it is quite impossible 
for them to do this, they remain hidden away in their homes. 



750 CURIOSITIES OF 

The fashion of paying IS'ew Year calls, now dying out with us, 
is still in vogue in China, but there it is men who receive as well 
as who pay the visits, Chinese women taking no part whatever 
in social life. Every Chinaman, except among the very lowest 
classes, expects to receive visits from his inferiors, and to pay 
them to those who are above him in station. In some cases 
sending a card is deemed sufficient. These cards consist of thin 
strips of scarlet paper with the name of the sender written on 
them in black characters. Sometimes good wishes are added. 

People meeting in the streets salute each other by crying, 
"Kung-hi! Kung-hi!" ("I humbly wish you joy") or "Sin-hi! 
Sin-hi!" ("May joy be yours"), so that it seems possible that our 
custom of saying " Happy [N'ew Year" as well as that of paying 
New Year visits may come to us from the Chinese. (^New York 
Evening Post, December 31, 1892.) 

The Japanese New Year, though legally limited like the 
Chinese to three days, stretches over a much longer time, and, 
save for the matter of date, is practically identical with the Chi- 
nese in its general features. 

A curious attribute of the period in Japan, China, and Corea 
is the fact that it is a common birthday for the community. 
From the moment a child makes his appearance he is spoken of 
as a year old, and this same age he continues to be considered 
till the beginning of the next calendar year. Then he is credited 
with another year. 

Nicholas, St., Archbishop of Myra, in Lycia, in the fourth 
century. A holy personage of many and various attributes. 
He is patron of Eussia, and especially of serfs and serfdom, 
because he protected the weak against the strong, the oppressed 
against the oppressor, the poor against the rich ; of Yenice, 
Freiburg, and other seaport towns, as well as of mariners and 
travellers, because he stilled a storm when journeying to the 
Holy Land ; of thieves, because he forced a gang to restore their 
plunder (in the Middle Ages robbers called themselves Knights 
or Clerks of St. Nicholas) ; of boys, especially scholars, because 
he resuscitated three school-boys whom a wicked innkeeper had 
murdered and salted in a tub ; and of young girls, because, out 
of compassion for a distressed nobleman about to sacrifice his 
three daughters to a life of infamy, he cast three purses of gold 
through the nobleman's window under cover of night, to enable 
the girls to marry honorably. He is supposed to have died on 
December 6, 342, and his festival on the anniversary of that date 
is celebrated in Roman and Grreek Catholic countries with especial 
reference to his patronage of youth. In England it was formerly 
made memorable by the mummeries of the Boy- Bishop (q. v.). 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 751 

But at present in most Protestant countries St. Nicholas, usually 
under the German diminutive of Santa Claus, is connected with 
Christmas as the supposed dispenser of gifts, while his own feast 
is entirely neglected. 

In France, St. Nicholas's Day is the grand fete-day of children 
in general. Even before its arrival they are accustomed to put 
up their petitions in these words : 

St.-Nicolas, mon bon patron, 
Envoyez-moi quelque chose bien bon. 

(" St. Nicholas, my good patron, 
Send me something very good.") 

The incantation is generally effective in the way of bringing 
something. But whether that something shall be feon, or the 
reverse of bon, depends upon the conduct of the child during the 
past twelve-month. It is rare, indeed^ that St. Nicholas risks his 
popularity so far as to present his petitioners with nothing at all. 
It might lead to scepticism in the infant mind. On the eve 
of his day, expectant children hang up their stockings in the 
chimney-corner, and then retire to rest. If they have been good 
during the previous year, toys and bonbons are next morning 
found to have been miraculouslj' concealed within the stocking ; 
but if naughtiness has been the rule, the stocking is discovered 
full of old paper, or coals, or refuse, and hidden therein are a rod 
and a cane. In general, however, even the pleasant things are 
accompanied by an emblematic rod — half a dozen little birch 
twigs tied together with an end of pink ribbon — to be kept and 
looked at from time to time, as a hint that St. Nicholas has his 
eyes open upon what is going on in nurseries and schools. 

In many of the southern provinces of Germany, where Cath- 
olics predominate, St. Nicholas's Day is celebrated as a prelimi- 
nary to Christmas. But there St. Nicholas does not sneak into 
the house at night. He boldly presents himself just after supper 
on the eve of his festival. The door-bell rings, and he stalks 
into the parlor, where the family with all the children have 
assembled to greet him. His merry round face, encircled by 
cottony hair and beard, his rubicund nose, his fat and jovial 
figure, are much like the pictures of our own St. Nick. On, his 
back he bears a bag stuffed with things both good and bad. 
Eubbing his hands, he greets the company, and then calls each 
child by name and questions him in regard to his actions in the 
past year and his promises for the future. If the record is good 
and he can recite a bit of a verse or jingle, it pleases St. Nicholas 
mightily, and elicits some reward in the shape of fruit or cakes, 
with a promise of further remembrance on Christmas Day. St. 



752 CURIOSITIES OF 

Nicholas then departs, with many flourishes and much tinkling 
of bells, to continue his round of visits. On Christmas Day the 
Christ-Child appears, and brings the promised gifts for good 
behavior. 

Sometimes the mummery is varied. St. Nicholas appears 
dressed as a bishop, mitre on head, crook in hand, with long 
white robes trailing to the ground. After the customary recital 
of verses and bestowal of gifts, he gives a lecture to the parents 
on their duties to children, admonishes the children to obey their 
parents and be good, and asks them what they would like the 
Christ-Child to bring them for Christmas. 

In South Austria, where there is no Christmas Day in our 
sense of the word, but only a church festival, the eve of St. 
Nicholas's Day is the great season for gift-making. A young 
man, well versed in the Church catechism, assumes the part of 
the bishop-saint. He is accompanied by two angels, dressed 
much like choir-boys, each carrying a bag or a basket, while in 
his train follow a lot of devils with blackened faces, tooting on 
tin horns and furiously rattling the chains that bind them 
together. He enters the house with his angels, leaving his 
devils at the threshold. 

A great silence falls upon the assembled company, and the 
children are called up and examined religiously. This is carried 
out with great seriousness. If the trial is passed successfully, 
the angels step forward and give the child gifts and nuts and 
cakes of fantastic forms ; if he fails, he has to stand aside. 

" When the inquisition is over, the devils are allowed to enter 
and frighten the children, but not to touch them, and amuse 
them with their strange dances and antics. Their whole appear- 
ance is farcical, and for the evening they are allowed great 
license and fun in the village. After St. Nicholas has departed 
the children go to their homes, with the expectation that St. 
Nicholas will visit each house separately and be more generous 
and bring them more gifts. So, after saying their prayers with 
more than usual earnestness, they put baskets and dishes on the 
window-sills and go to bed. The parents later put their simple 
gifts in these places. 

" The 6th of December, the real day of the feast, is celebrated 
in the churches alone. The celebration of this day in this way 
does not seem at all out of keeping with the lives of the simple 
people." (Katherine Farrand Eeighard, in The Outlook, De- 
cember 28, 1895.) 

Among the old Dutch burghers of New York, New Year's Eve 
was the date on which fat jolly roistering St. Nicholas made his 
appearance, sometimes accompanied by his good-natured vrouw, 
Molly Grietje. Then the children gathered round the immense 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 753 

fireplace, singing in muffled voices their evening hymns to the 
good saint : 

Santa Klaus, goedt heilig man ! 

Knopyebest van Amsterdam, 

Van Amsterdam aan Spanje, 

Van Spanje aan Oranje, 

En brang deze kindjes eenige graps ; 

(" Santa Claus, good holy man ! 
Go your way from Amsterdam, 
From Amsterdam to Spain, 
From Spain to Orange, 
And bring these little children toys ;") 
or, 

Sint Nicolaas, myn goden vriend, 
Ik hab u altyd wel gediend ; 
Als gy my nu not wilt geben, 
Zal ik dienen als myn leben. 

(" Saint Nicholas, my dear good friend, 
To serve you ever was my end ; 
If you me now something will give, 
Serve you I will as long as I live.") 

From an ecclesiastical point of view, however, the festival 
of St. Nicholas is nowhere celebrated with more splendor and 
earnestness than at Bari, a seaport on the southeastern coast 
of Italy. Here, in a subterranean building of Saracenic archi- 
tecture beneath the superb church of St. Nicholas, are treasured 
the bones of the saint. Legend relates that these were originally 
buried in his own cathedral at Myra. In the eleventh century 
they were stolen by certain merchants of Bari, who landed with 
them at that town on May 9, 1087, and handed them over to the 
archbishop. On the very day when they were reburied in what 
was then the church of St. Stephen, thirty persons were cured 
of various distempers by the intercession of the saint. Since 
that time the tomb of St. Nicholas of Bari has been famous for 
pilgrimages. To this day the 6th of December draws hither 
pilgrims to the number of many thousands, all with staves 
bound with olive and pine, many of them barefooted ; all of 
them fed, if they will, at the priory gates ; all of them clad in 
their picturesque ancient costumes, devoted, earnest, fiery, and 
observing a rite that has been known from time immemorial. 

A novel and intei-esting part of the ceremonies is seen when 
the sailors of the port, in memory possibly of some old rites in 
honor of Neptune, take the saint's image from the care of the 
canons, and bear it through the streets and far out to sea, only 
returning with it at nightfall, when, with bonfires and rockets 
and torches, the whole population intoning chants and litanies, 
they carry it about from shrine to shrine, and at length restore it 

48 



754 CURIOSITIES OF 

to its keepers under the late stars with solemn earnestness, and 
with all the wild but half-suppressed religious excitement pos- 
sible only to the high -wrought Southern temperament. 

A contributor to Chambers's " Book of Days" (vol. ii. p. 664) 
who was present at St. Mcholas's feast in Bari adds some inter- 
esting particulars : 

" The clergy composing the chapter of St. Nicholas are not 
slow to maintain the thaumaturgic character of their patron, 
and seem to believe in it. The bones of the saint are deposited 
in a sepulchre beneath the magnificent crypt, which is in itself 
a sort of subterranean church, of rich Saracenic architecture. 
Through the native rock which forms the tomb, water constantly 
exudes, which is collected by the canons on a sponge attached 
to a reed, squeezed into bottles, and sold to the pilgrims, as a 
miraculous specific, under the name of the ' Manna of St. Nich- 
olas.' As a proof of its supernatural character, a large bottle 
was shown to me, in which, suspended from the cork, grew and 
floated the delicate green bladder of one of the Adriatic ulvce. 
I suppose that its growth in fresh water had been extremely 
slow, for a person, whose w^ord I did not doubt, assured me 
that he remembered the bottle from his childhood, and that the 
vegetation was then much less visible. ' This,' said the grand 
vicar, a tall aquiline-featured priest, who looked as if he watched 
the effect of every word upon a probable heretic, — ' this we con- 
sider to be conclusive as to the character of the water. If vege- 
tation takes place in water that you keep in a jar, the water 
becomes offensive. This bottle has been in its present state for 
many years. You see the vegetation. But it is not putrid. 
Taste it, you will find it perfectly sweet. Questa e prodigiosa.' I 
trust that all the water that was sold to the pilgrims was really 
thus afforded by St. Nicholas, if its efficacy be such as is asserted 
to be the case ; but on this subject the purchasers must rely 
implicitly on the good faith of the canons, as mere human 
senses cannot distinguish it from that of the castle well." 

Nigger 'Lection Day. In Boston this was the name given in 
early times to the day when the name of the newly elected gov- 
ernor was formally announced. The black population were then 
allowed to throng the Common and join in the festivities of their 
white brethren. But on the White Election Day, or Artillery 
Day (q. v.), which occurred in the same week, no black man 
dared to be seen in the places of public resort. In other local- 
ities, notably on the Massachusetts coast, in Connecticut, and in 
Narragansett, the term Nigger 'Lection was applied to the elec- 
tion of a black governor whom the negroes chose to hold sway 
over them. The authority which this governor wielded over his 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



756 



brethren frequently made him a man of some importance in the 
community, and his master was glad to pay for the feasting which 
attended his election and inauguration. Occasionally Nigger 
'Lection had a deep political significance and influence. (See 
Hinman's " American Kevolution.") 

Noche triste. (Sp., " Sad or Disastrous Night.") The name 
given by the Spanish under Cortes to the night of July 1-2, 1520, 
when they were almost cut to pieces by the Mexican natives. 
Cortes had reached the city of Mexico with his army in the 
previous November. He was hospitably received, but, fearing 
treachery, he seized Montezuma in his own house and confined 
him in the Spanish quarters as a hostage. The Aztecs rose in 
arms and attacked the quarters. Montezuma, sent by Cortes to 
the walls to expostulate with them, was received with a shower 
of stones, and died June 30, 1520. Cortes immediately resolved 
to leave Mexico city in secret. The movement was discovered, 
and the natives set upon the Spaniards in the narrow causeway 
of Tlapoca. The latter finally escaped, with the loss of four 
hundred and fifty of their small force, besides four thousand of 
their Indian allies and all their plunder. 

November. This name signifies the ninth month (see Sep- 
tember and October), which position it occupied in the ten- 
month calendar ascribed to Eomulus. The name was retained 
when two additional months were added. The Emperor Tibe- 
rius was born in this month. Hence the Senate wished to give 




November. GRotJP round a Fire. 



it his name, following the precedent set by Augustus, but he 
declined the honor, saying, '• What will you do, conscript fathers, 
when you have thirteen Csesars ?" 

It was the Windmonath, or Wind Month, of the Saxons, who 
.knew it also as Blotmonath or Sacrifice Month, in consequence 
either of the sacrifices then performed, or of the custom of 
slaughtering the cattle for their winter supply of meat. 



756 CVRIOSITIES OF 



O. 

Oak-Apple Day, Royal Oak Day, or Restoration Day. 

A festival which still survives locally in England on May 29 in 
double commemoration of the birthday of Charles II. and of his 
return to London after the rebellion, May 29, 1660. The allusion 
is to his concealment in an oak-tree near Boscobel House, Shrop- 
shire, after his defeat by Cromwell at the battle of Worcester on 
September 3, 1651. John Evelyn in his Diary under date of May 
29, 1665, records that this " was the first anniversary appointed 
by Act of ParHament to be observed as a day of General Thanks- 
giving for the miraculous restoration of His Majesty ; our vicar 
preaching on Psalm cxviii. 24, requiring us to be thankful and 
rejoice, as indeed we had cause." A special form of prayer suited 
to this day remained in the Common Prayer Book until it was 
abolished by Act of Parliament in 1859 (22 Yict. c. 2). On this 
day it was also customary for the chaplain of the House of Com- 
mons to preach in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, before 
" the House," usually represented by the Speaker, the sergeant- 
at-arms, the clerks and other officers, and some half-dozen mem- 
bers. This observance has been discontinued since 1858. (Times : 
Something for Everybody, 1861, p. 74.) 

The circumstances of Charles's flight after the battle of Wor- 
cester are full of romantic adventure, and an account of them 
is necessary to a full understanding of the Oak-Apple Day fes- 
tivities. Boscobel House had been built in the time of James I. 
by a Catholic gentleman named John Gifford, who had caused 
various places of concealment to be constructed for the purpose 
of affording shelter to proscribed persons of his own reli«;ion. 
Hence it was deemed a safe place for the royal fugitive. There 
was no one at home save William Penderel, the housekeeper, his 
wife, and his four brothers. Later Charles was joined by the 
brave Cavalier, Colonel Carlis, who had been the last man to 
retreat from Worcester. An alarm reaching Boscobel that the 
Roundhead troopers were on the track of the fugitives, it was 
determined by the faithful brothers to conceal them in a thick 
spreading oak in the adjoining woods. This plan was hit upon 
none too soon, for the Roundheads soon appeared. Miss Agnes 
Strickland in Harper's Magazine for December, 1850, has pre- 
served a curious tradition of the search that followed. " Pope's 
popular but long-suppressed line," she says, — 

" Angels who watched the royal oak so well, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 757 

always makes me think that he must have been familiar with 
the following incident which my father's motFar, Elizabeth Cot- 
terel, who was the grand-daughter of a cadet of the old loyal 
family of that name in Staffordshire, and maternally descended 
from one of the honest Penderel brothers, was accustomed to 
relate as a fact, derived from family tradition, connected with 
the perils and hairbreadth escapes of Charles II. at Boscobel. 

" ' The Eoundhead troopers,' she said, ' having tracked the 
king, first to Whiteladies, and then to Boscobel Forest, were led, 
by the keen scent of their bloodhounds, just at the twilight hour, 
to the very tree in which he and Colonel Carlis were hidden. The 
traitors, a sergeant and five others of the same company, made 
a halt under the Eoyal Oak, and began to reconnoitre it, while 
their dogs came baying and barking round about the trunk. 
Suddenly the leaves began to rustle, and one of the villains cried 
out, — 

" ' " Hallo ! some one is surely hidden here ! — look how the 
branches shake." 

" ' " It will be worth a thousand pounds to us if it be the 
young king," said another. 

" 'Then the sergeant asked who would volunteer to ascend the 
tree, and earn a larger share of the reward by taking the sup- 
posed prize alive ; but, as no one appeared willing to risk the 
chance of encountering a clapperclawing from the royal lion, 
dealt from a vantage height, he was just giving the word for 
them to fire a volley into the tree, when, by the grace of God,' 
the old lady would add with impressive solemnity, 'a white owl 
flew out from the thickest covert of the branches and screeched 
" fie upon them !" as well she might ; whereupon the false traitors 
hooted out a curse as bitter as that of Meroz on the poor bird, 
and growled to each other that it was she that had misled 
their dogs, and had stirred the leaves withal, to mock themselves; 
howsomever, they would have a shot at her, to teach her better 
manners than to screech at the soldiers of the Lord. But 
though five of the sorry knaves banged off their musketoons at 
the harmless bird, not oneof t,hem was marksman enough to hit 
a feather of her. Lastly, the sergeant took out a printed copy 
of the proclamation, promising " the reward of a thousand pounds 
for the apprehension of the young man, Charles Stuart, eldest 
son of the late King Charles," and fastened it on the trunk of 
the- Eoyal Oak where his majesty was sitting in the branches 
above them, hearing all they said, and an eye-witness of their 
treason.' " 

After numerous other adventures, the royal fugitive succeeded 
towards the end of October in securing passage in a little bark 
from Shoreham to Dieppe, where he landed in safety. More 



768 CURIOSITIES OF 

than forty persons, some of them in very humble circumstances, 
had been instrumental in his escape, not one of whom could 
be induced to betray him by the large reward offered by the 
Parliament. 

On the 8th of May, 1660, Charles II. was proclaimed king in 
London and Westminster and subsequently throughout his do- 
minions. On the 16th he came to the Hague, on the 23d em- 
barked with his two brothers for England, and on the 25th 
landed at Dover, where he was received by General Monk at the 
head of a portion of the army, who escorted him to Canterbury. 
On the 29th, his birthday, he made his triumphal entry into 
London. 

On the 13th of June, 1661, Charles summoned the five Shrop- 
shire brothers to attend him at Whitehall, when his majesty 
was pleased to acknowledge their faithful services, and signified 
his intention of notifying his gratitude by a suitable reward, 
inquiring if they had any particular favor to ask. They only 
asked an exemption from the penal laws, with liberty for them- 
selves and their descendants to enjoy the free exercise of their 
religion, being members of the Catholic Church. This request 
was granted, and their names, together with those of their kins- 
woman Mrs. Yates, Mr. Huddleston, and Mr. Whitgreave, were 
especially exempted in the statute from the pains and penalties 
of recusancy. 

King Charles granted a moderate pension to them and their 
descendants forever. 

" The Oak," says a contemporary, whose pleasant little chron- 
icle of Boscobel was published in 1660, the year of the restora- 
tion, "is now properly called ' The Eoyal Oake of Boscobel,' nor 
will it lose that name while it continues a tree: and since his 
majesty's happy restoration that those mysteries have been re- 
vealed, hundreds of people for many miles round have flocked to 
see the famous Boscobel, which, as you have heard, had once the 
honor to be the palace of his sacred majesty, but chiefly to be- 
hold the Eoyal Oake, which has been deprived of all its young 
boughs by the visitors of it, who keep them in memory of his 
majesty's happy preservation." 

Dr. Stukeley in his " Itinerarium Curiosum," 1724, vol. iii. p. 
57, makes this mention of the tree : " A bowshot from Boscobel 
House, just by a horse-track passing through the wood, stood 
the Eoyal Oak, into which the king and his companion. Colonel 
Carlis, climbed by means of the hen-roost ladder, when they 
judg'd it no longer safe to stay in the house ; the family reach- 
ing them victuals with the nuthook. The tree is now enclosed 
in with a brick wall, the inside whereof is covered with lawrel, 
of which we may say, as Ovid did of that before the Augustan 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 759 

palace. ' mediamque tuebere quercum.' Close by its side grows 
a yoong thriving plant from one of its acorns. Over the door 
of the inclosure, I took this inscription in marble : ' Felicissimam 
arborem quam in asylum potentissimi Eegis Caroli II. Deus O. 
M. per quem reges regnant hie crescere voluit, tam in perpetuam 
rei tantse memoriam, quam specimen firmse in reges fidei, muro 
cinctam posteris commendant Basilius et Jana Fitzherbert. 
Quercus arnica Jovi.' " 

The tree and its enclosure have long since disappeared, but 
the inscription is still preserved in the farm-house at Boscobel. 
Burgess in his " Eidodendron" tells us that the Eoyal Oak 
'• succumbed at length to the reiterated attentions of its vota- 
ries, and a huge bulk of timber, consisting of many loads, was 
taken away by handfuls." Saplings were raised in different 
parts of the country from its acorns. Several were sown by the 
king himself Making a pilgrimage to the scene of his former 
troubles, he visited the Eoyal Oak, and was observed to gather 
a handful of the acorns. Some of these he planted with his 
own hand in St. James's Park. A promising young tree, which 
sprang from one of these acorns, which Charles had planted in 
the queen's pleasure garden, within sight of his bedchamber, in 
St. James's Palace, and was accustomed to water and tend with 
great pleasure, was called the King's Eoyal Oak, and had be- 
come an object of interest to the people as a relic of that popu- 
lar sovereign, but was destroyed by Sarah, Duchess of Marlbor- 
ough, as soon as her husband obtained the grant of the ground 
on which it stood, for the site of Marlborough House. This 
was regarded as an outrage on popular feeling. 

Two others stood on the north side of the Serpentine in Hyde 
Park, but were blighted by a severe frost at the beginning of 
the present century. One was entirely removed. The stem and 
a few branches of the other still remain, covered with ivy and 
protected by an iron fence. 

In the Bodleian Library is preserved a fragment of the original 
tree, carved in the form of a salver for a tankard. The inscrip- 
tion records that it is a gift from Mrs. Letitia Lane, a member 
of the Penderel family. The Barber-Surgeons' Company of 
London possesses a curious memorial in the form of a silver cup 
presented to it by Charles IL, the stem and body of which repre- 
sent an oak-tree from which hang acorns fashioned like little 
bells, which ring as the cup passes from hand to hand around 
the festive board of the company on great occasions. 

Oak Apple Day was formerly universally commemorated in 
England by the people wearing oak-leaves or oak-apples in their 
hats, which were sometimes covered witii leaf-t!;old. In London 
it was also usual on this anniversary to decorate the monument 



760 CURIOSITIES OF 

of Kiehard Penderel in the churchyard of St. Griles with oak 
branches and to pay a similar tribute to the statue of Charles I. 
at Charing Cross. These customs survived the Eevolution of 
1688, even in the army, for Brand records that "two soldiers 
were whipped almost to death and turned out of the service for 
wearing boughs in their hats on the 29th of May, 1716." Brand, 
writing in 1849, also says, — 

" I remember the boys at Newcastle-upon-Tyne had formerly 
a taunting rhyme on this occasion, with which they used to 
insult such persons as they met on this day who had not oak- 
leaves in their hats : 

" Koyal Oak, 
The Whigs to provoke. 

" There was a retort courteous by others, who contemptuously 
wore plane-tree leaves, which is of the same homely sort of stuff : 

' ' Plane-tree leaves ; 
The Church-folk are thieves." 

Even to this day May 29 is known as Shitsack or Shickshack 
Day in Wiltshire and Berkshire, the young people carrying shit- 
sack, or sprigs of young oak, in the morning, and powder- 
monkey or even-ash (ash-leaves with an equal number of leaflets) 
in the afternoon. " Those who wear these emblems of loyalty 
have the privilege of pinching or otherwise ill-treating those 
who do not don the oak-leaf" " (P. H. Ditchfield : Old English 
Customs extant at the Present Time, London and New York, 1886.) 
In Nottinghamshire, also, according to the same authority, the 
anniversary is known as Oak and Nettle Day. The boys arm 
themselves with oak sprigs and bunches of nettles. The latter 
they use to strike the hands and faces of all who cannot " show 
their oak." Eotten eggs, says Mr, Ditchfield, were used as in- 
struments of punishment twenty years ago. 

The workingmen of Basingstoke and other towns in Hamp- 
shire arise early on the 29th of May to gather slips of oak with 
the gall on ; these they put in their hats or anywhere about their 
persons. They also hang pieces to the knockers, latches, or other 
parts of the house doors of the wealthy, who take them in to 
place in their halls, etc. After breakfast these men go round to 
such houses for beer, etc. If they do not receive anything, the 
following verses should be said, — 

Shig-shag, penny a rag 

(Bang his head in Croommell's bag), 

All up in a bundle, — 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 761 

but fear often prevents them. However, the lads have no fear, 
and use it freely to any one without an oak-apple or oak-leaf 
visible on some part of his person, — ill-treating him for his want 
of loyalty. After noon the loyalty ceases, and then if any one 
be charged with having shig-shag, the following verses are said ; 

Shig-shag's gone past, 
You're the biggest fool at last; 
"When shig-shag comes again, 
You'll be the biggest fool then. 

And the one who charges the other with the oak-leaf receives 
the ill-treatment. {Notes and Queries, First Series, vol. xii. p. 100.) 

At the villages of Wishford and Barford, near Sahsbury, the 
inhabitants who claim certain rights in Grovely Woods assert 
them by meeting here on May 29, when they gather boughs and 
carry them in procession, with the cry of " Grovely, Grovely, 
Grovely !" 

Hone (1826, vol. i. p. 618) has the following entry: 

" At Tiverton, on the 29th of May, it is customary for a num- 
ber of young men, dressed in the style of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, and armed with swords, to parade the streets and gather 
contributions from the inhabitants. At the head of the proces- 
sion walks a man called ' Oliver,' dressed in black, with his face 
and hands smeared over with soot and grease, and his body 
bound with a strong cord, the end of which is held by one of 
the men to prevent his running too far. After these come 
another troop, dressed in the same style, each man bearing a 
large branch of oak ; four others, carrying a kind of throne 
made of oaken boughs, on which a child is seated, bring up the 
rear. A great deal of merriment is excited among the boys at 
the pranks of ' Master Oliver,' who capers ahout in a most ludi- 
crous manner. Some of them amuse themselves by casting dirt, 
while others, more mischievously inclined, throw stones at him, 
but woe betide the young urchin who is caught ; his face assumes 
a most awful appearance from the soot and grease with which 
' Oliver' begrimes it, whilst his companions who have been lucky 
enough to escape his clutches testify their pleasure by loud 
shouts. In the evening the whole party have a feast, the ex- 
penses of which are defrayed by the collection made in the 
morning. ' 

The Illustrated London News for May 30, 1857, p. 515, describes 
Oak-Apple Day as being anxiously looked forward to by old 
and young : " Early in the morning ropes are stretched across 
the street, upon which are hung garlands composed of all such 
flowers as are in bloom. The garlands are also ornamented with 
colored ribbons and handkerchiefs, and all the teaspoons which 



762 CURIOSITIES OF 

can be collected are hung in the middle. Maypoles, which are 
less common, and large boughs of oak, are pressed into service. 
Many are the penn'orths of gold leaf sold the day before, with 
which to gild the oak-apple for the button-hole. A benefit club 
meets on this day, and walks in procession with bands and flags 
to church, after which they make a progress through the town 
with bands playing and colors flying, finishing up with a dinner." 

The town of Northampton still preserves a grateful memory 
of Stuart generosity. A fire nearly destroyed the town in 1675. 
Charles II. contributed one thousand tons of lumber out of 
Whittlewood Forest, to enable the citizens to rebuild their houses, 
and also remitted the duty of chimney money for seven years. 
Formerly all the citizens placed a large branch of oak over the 
doors of their houses on May 29. The oak boughs are rapidly 
disappearing, but Ditchfield (p. 121) assures us that the corpora- 
tion still attend All Saints' Church, and march thither in pro- 
cession, followed by all the school-children in the town, the boys 
having gilt oak-apples in their caps. The statue of the king, 
near the church, is also decorated with oaken boughs on this 
day, and many of the houses are similarly adorned. 

The same authority mentions the continuance of the custom 
at Durham for the cathedral choir to ascend the tower of the 
cathedral on May 29 and sing three anthems from the three 
sides of it. This custom is as old as the battle of Neville's Cross, 
which Queen Philippa fought with David I. of Scotland in the 
year 1346, when the monks chanted masses from the summit of 
the tower on behalf of the queen. Tradition states that a choir- 
boy once overbalanced himself and fell from the tower, and was 
killed. Hence the choir sing their anthems only on the three 
sides. 

At Chelsea Hoyal Hospital, London, the anniversary is kept 
every year with military rites and a patriotic consumption of 
beef and pudding by the aged pensioners, who sport their 
brightest coats and badges. Chelsea Hospital, it will be remem- 
bered, was founded by Charles II. at the suggestion of Nell 
Gwynn, who probably remembered pityingly the wounded and 
useless soldiers she used to meet at Whitehall and Westminster 
in her professional rounds as an orange-girl. 

October. This month was so named because it was the 
eighth month in the primitive Eoman calendar ascribed to 
Eomulus. It became the tenth month in the calendar as revised 
by Numa, who added January and February, but it retained its 
original name, the more readily, perhaps, because it once more 
became the tenth month when the year commenced, as it did in 
early Christendom, with March. Julius Caesar in his revision of 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



763 



the caleDdar gave it thirty days, which number was changed to 
thirty-one by Augustus. As was the case with September, many 
Eoman Emperors sought to change its name in their own honor. 
It was successively Germanicus, Antoninus, Tacitus, and Hercu- 
leus, the latter a surname of the Emperor Commodus. But 
none of these names clung. The Eoman Senate had no better 
luck when they renamed it Faustinus, in honor of Faustina, wife 
of Antoninus. 

The Anglo-Saxons called October WinterfyUeth, a name which 
indicated that winter approached with the full moon of the 
month. In old almanacs the sport of hawking is adojDted as 




October, Hawking. 

emblematical of this which was accounted the last month of 
autumn. On October 23 the sun enters the sign Scorpio, the as- 
tronomical emblem said to typify, in the form of a destructive 
insect, the increasing power of cold over nature. In the same 
manner the equal influences of cold and heat are represented by 
Libra, or The Balance, the sign of the preceding month of 
September. 

Hedge-crickets sing ; and now, with treble soft. 
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft. 

(Keats.) 

The warm sun is failing ; the bleak wind is wailing ; 
The bare boughs are sighing ; the pale flowers are dying. 

(Shelley.) 

The rivers run chill ; the red sun is sinking. 
And I am grown old, and life is fast shrinking. 

(Hood.) 

Yet for ever and aye I will bless his name, 
"While his winds blow fresh and his sunsets flame. 
This prince of months, — October. 

(Hayne.) 



Oils, Holy. Three oils are used in the sacred services of the 
Catholic Church : oil for the sick, employed in the sacrament of 
extreme unction ; oil of the chrism, used after baptism, during 



764 



CURIOSITIES OF 



confirmation, at the consecration of bishops, and of paten and 
chalice, and in the blessing of bells ; and oil of the catechumens, 
so called because employed on the candidates for baptism before 
they are brought to the sacred font, but used also in the ordina- 
tion of priests and the blessing and coronatiorj of kings and 
queens. 

Prior to the fourth century no particular day was fixed for the 
ceremony of blessing these oils, though from the earliest times 




Blessing the Holy Oils (1723). 
(From Picart.) 

the power of performing the function has been limited to the 
bishops. The present custom of the Eoman Church is to bless 
the holy oils once a year, on Maundy Thursday. They are im- 
mediately distributed among the pastors of the several parishes, 
who must keep them under lock and key in vessels of silver or 
alloyed metal. The oils of the past year must not be used, but 
common oil, in lesser quantity, may be added to the blessed oils 
if necessary. 

In Rome the ceremony of blessing is publicly performed at 
the church of St. John Lateran. Twelve priests and seven 
deacons assist the officiating bishop. The bishop and priests 




BLESSING THE HOLY OILS. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 765 

breathe three times upon each of the oils, meaning by this action 
that the power of the Holy Spirit is about to descend on the 
oils ; and after the consecration is complete they salute the oils 
with the words " Hail, holy oil ! hail, holy chrism !" 

The Greek Church differs from the Latin in that the former 
blesses the oils only once in three years, at Easter time. The 
ceremony takes place at Moscow or Kief 

On Monday morning the metropolitan goes to the sacristy of 
the patriarchs, lights a fire, and pours into a caldron a gallon 
of myro, or chrism, reading meanwhile the Gospel of the day. 

The oil is kept boiling for three days and nights, monks at- 
tending in relays and stirring the contents of the caldron with 
silver ladles. Olive oil mixed with white wine of Lisbon and 
perfumes make up the myro. The final ceremony takes place 
when the mixture is put into two silver receptacles upon a 
porcelain stove and stirred by six deacons in vestments of silver 
and black. 

The Empress Catherine II. gave to the church a silver vase, 
which is still used as the final receptacle into which the oil is 
poured, with a benediction. The people attend in thousands, as 
they are permitted, and dip bits of cotton into the holy mixture. 
On the afternoon of Thursday the vases are carried in a proces- 
sion to the cathedral, where the metropolitan says mass. 

Olaf, St.,or Olaf II. (995-1030), patron of J^orway, and, since 
the union, of Sweden. His festival on July 29, the day of his 
death, is still celebrated in the joint kingdom. Descended from 
the ancient royal line, he was educated in exile as a Christian, 
and in 1015- succeeded in wresting the crown from the usurper. 
For fifteen years he devoted himself to the evangelization of 
his new subjects. In 1030 he was slain in battle against the 
invader Canute, King of England and Denmark. A year later 
his remains were found in a miraculous state of preservation, 
and were buried with great state in a chapel he had erected at 
Trondhjem. The marvels enacted at his shrine attracted so 
many pilgrims that the city speedily grew to be the largest and 
most important in the land, and the chapel gave place to a 
cathedral, in which the saint's bones still repose. Though he 
was never canonized, the Church has bowed to popular acclama- 
tion and never disputed his saintship. 

Ommegang, Procession of the. A famous ceremony 
which was formerly celebrated in Brussels on the Sunday before 
Pentecost. It was held in honor of a miraculous statue of the 
Virgin that had been carried in 1348 from Antwerp to Brussels 
by a poor woman named Beatrice Soctkens and presented to 



766 CURIOSITIES OF 

the church of Notre-Dame des Yictoires. The commemoration 
of the incident was made a municipal one. All the city magis- 
trates, the guilds and corporations, the companies of archers and 
crossbowmen, joined in a grand cavalcade specifically known as 
the Ommegang, which accompanied the floats bearing represen- 
tations of Old and New Testament scenes, together with animals, 
giants, etc. The image itself was carried in a miniature ship. 
(See Ursula, St.) 

Ordensfest. (Grer., " Feast of Orders.") A ceremon}'^ pecu- 
liar to Berlin. On some appointed day in the last week of 
March all who during the preceding year have received any kind 
of distinction from the German Emperor — the only source of 
such honors — are invited to a service in the cathedral, followed 
by a dinner at the castle. From one to two thousand persons 
are thus brought together, ranging from the select few who have 
obtained the order of the Eed Eagle to the hundreds who have 
been decorated with the simplest Hohenzollern house order. 
Most of the latter are, as a rule, members of the civil service, 
or of fire-brigades, or non-commissioned officers, or even lackeys, 
who value such decorations as testimonials and hand them down 
to their children as heirlooms. All these are called to Berlin, 
where the excellence of the dinner in the castle fully compen- 
sates for the length of the sermon in the church. The guests 
are seated at a series of tables, each of which is set apart for 
one particular grade, according to the decoration conferred. 
The system of orders, which are always announced as coming 
direct from the king, is undoubtedly of great value in creating 
a numerous body of loyal adherents. 

Ouen or Ouine, St. (Lat. Audoenus), patron of Eouen, France 
(595-683). He was bishop of that city for forty-four years. His 
death-day, August 24, was formerly celebrated with a great fair 
at St. Malo, in Brittany. This was known as the Saint-Ouine, 
and alternatively as the Periwinkle Fair, — from the bowlfuls of 
periwinkles that were sold at it, — or the Whistle Fair, because 
of the innumerable whistles and trumpets and horns which chil- 
dren bought there four centuries ago as they still buy them to- 
day. It then took place within the walls of St. Malo. After 
the great fire in the sixteenth century, which burned half the 
town to the ground, the site of the fair was changed to the island 
of the Grand Bey, where there was then a chapel dedicated to 
the saint, about which the wives of St. Malo sailors prayed for 
fair winds to bring their men home, turning the chapel cross 
towards the quarter whence the wind should come, so that the 
saying arose, " As changeable as the cross of St. Ouine." Lastly, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 767 

about the middle of the nineteenth century, long after the last 
ruins of the chapel on the Grand Bey had been swept away or 
overgrown, the Saint-Ouine was transferred to the broad quays 
outside the town, where it is now held every year on the fifth 
Sunday in Lent. But its importance has gone from it : from 
its ancestor the great Whistle Fair it has inherited only one 
quality, and that is noise. 



Palio. The annual horse-race run in Siena in honor of the 
Yirgin Mary, patron of the city, on August 15. The horses aro 
the stout little nags put to every-day use by butchers, green- 
grocers, and tradesmen. Each of the seventeen wards of Siena 
selects its champion, a survival from the old party feuds between 
the wards, and an attendant company of ten men dressed in 
mediaeval costumes. A few hours before the race, horses and 
men are blessed with much ceremony in their particular parish, 
and then proceed to the Campo, the chief square in the cit}", 
where they form part in a gorgeous procession headed by the 
town band and closed by a modern fac-simile of the Carroccio, or 
battle-car, taken from the Florentines at Monteaperto (1260) by 
the victorious Sienese. Then come the races, which are run 
barebacked, the jockeys having a cruel whip of ox-sinew^ called 
a nerho^ which they are privileged to use not only on their own 
but also on the rival horses, and on the rival jockeys as well. 
The wanner is' escorted back in triumph to the parish church by 
his own company and their adherents. There the prize banner 
is hung up among a host of similar trophies, some of them dating 
back many centuries, for the Palio has been run ever since the 
fourteenth century. 

Pallium. (Lat., " a cover," " a mantle.") A band of white 
wool adorned with four purple crosses, which is w^orn by the 
highest dignitaries of the Catholic Church on the most solemn 
occasions. It is woven especially for the Pope and sent by him 
to patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and occasionally to bishops 
as a sign that they possess " the fulness of the episcopal office." 
Its origin and early history are obscure. Pallium was the 
Latin name for the loose upper garment of the Greeks which 
among the Eomans was especially affected by philosophers and 
among the Christians by ascetics. But no doubt the ecclesias- 
tical pallium had some connection w^ith the shoulder-band of the 
Jewish high-priest, which being adopted by Christian prelates 
came to symbolize the Lord seeking after the lost Iamb and 



768 CURIOSITIES OF 

carrying it, when found, on bis shoulder. From the East it was 
early transferred to the West, where it became the custom for 
the Bishop of Eorae to present it to the metropolitans connected 
with his see. The " Catholic Dictionary" thus sums up the prob- 




Archbishop receiving the Pallium. 
(From Picart.) 

able evolution of the pallium : " It was an ornament of metro 
politans, given to them perhaps from early times by the patriarchs 
and by the Pope in that comparatively narrow district which 
was under his most immediate supervision. Then the Pope gave 
it to his vicars in distant parts, then as a mark of special honor 
to some bishops, then he required all Western metropolitans to 
ask it from him before exercising their functions as archbishops, 
and finally the rule was extended even to patriarchs." 

The wearing of the pallium is a matter of much ceremony. 
First two chosen lambs are on St. Agnes' Day (January 21) 
brought to the church of St. Agnes at Eome by the apostolic 
subdeacons, while the Agnus Dei is being sung. These lambs 
are presented at the altar, received by two canons of the I^ateran 
church, and solemnly blessed. After mass the lambs are taken 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 769 

in charge by the nuns of St. Agnes until shearing-time, when 
their wool is spun and woven into pallia by the nuns of Torre 
de' Specehia. On the vigil of the festival of SS. Peter and Paul 
the newly made pallia are carried on gilded trays to St. Peter's, 
where they are blessed by the Pope and laid by the subdeacons 
upon the tomb of St. Peter. Here they remain all night. Next 
day they are locked up in a silver coifer close to the relics of St. 
Peter, where they remain until required. An archbishop cannot, 
strictly speaking, assume- the title or the functions of the archi- 
episcopate until he has received the pallium from Eome. In case 
he is elected to a see of metropolitan or higher rank, he must 
beg the pallium " instanter, instantius, instantissime," within 
three months after his consecration or from his confirmation if 
he was already a bishop and has come to the metropolitan see 
by translation. He receives it from the hands of another bishop 
deputed by the Pope. He cannot transmit it to his successor, 
and if translated he must beg for another pallium. The pallium 
or pallia, if he has received more than one, are buried with him 
when he dies. 

Palm Sunday. The Sunday before Easter, commemorating 
the triumphant entry of Christ into Jerusalem, when, mounted 
upon an ass, he rode into the city, and " a very great multitude 
spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches 
from the trees, and strewed them in the way. And the multi- 
tudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna 
to the Son of David : Blessed is he that cometh in the name 
of the Lord ; Hosanna in the highest." (Matt. xxi. 8, 9.) 

Their enthusiasm, however, speedily cooled, and He whom 
they had delighted to honor on the Sunday was on the following 
Friday put to a cruel and lingering death amid the applause of 
the populace. From a very early date, accordingly, of the 
Christian era (from the tenth century at least, if not from the 
fifth), the Sunday before Easter was called Palm Sunday, because 
on this day the Church ordained that boughs of palm-trees should 
be carried in procession, in imitation of those strewed before our 
Saviour when he rode into Jerusalem. The palms were con- 
secrated by the priests. A portion of them were (and still are) 
preserved to be burned for holy ashes to lay on the heads of the 
people on Ash Wednesday in the following year. The rest were 
distributed first among the assistant priests and next the congre- 
gation. Then the procession took its way from the church 
through the streets of the town, and back in procession again. 

To represent the Christ, a priest used to ride in the procession 
on an ass, carrying the host. Sometimes a wooden ass was used 
instead of a real one, and then the figure on its back, representing 

49 



770 CURIOSITIES OF 

the Saviour, was also of wood. The whole was mounted on a 
platform with wheels, and was drawn through the streets by a 
rope. The people threw down their palm-branches before this 
car, as it passed, and eagerly picked them up after the wheels 
had been over them, guarding them afterwards as charms against 
storms and lightning. In countries where real palms were not 
to be had, other kinds of branches and boughs were used instead. 
In England, for instance, willow boughs were the favorite sub- 
stitute. In some places, after the procession of the wooden ass 
was over, boys were allowed to hire the ass and its image rider 
from the sexton, to drag about the streets, while they begged for 
pennies. Half of all they got was the pay of the sexton. Before 
England became Protestant these processions were extremely 
popular through the countrj^, and when King Henry YIII. 
broke with the Church of Eome he specified the carrying of 
palms on Palm Sunday as one of the customs that were not to 
be discontinued. The formal observance of the feast was carried 
on till some time in the reign of Edward YI., and after that it 
gradually fell into disuse. 

The Pax or Peace Cake was formerly distributed on Palm 
Sunday in many English churches, the intention being that 
those who had quarrelled should break the cake together and 
say, " Peace and good will," thus making up their differences in 
preparation for the Easter communion. A survival of this cus- 
tom occurs in the united parishes of Sellack and King's Chapel, 
Herefordshire, where cakes are distributed on Palm Sunday, the 
cost of which is defrayed by a rent-charge on a farm in the 
parish. At one time glasses of ale were handed round with the 
cakes. Ditchfield informs us that the present vicar (1896) remem- 
bers seeing this part of the ceremony. 

In some places the priests used to make little crosses of the 
palms, and these were supposed to protect those who obtained 
them against lightning. There was a curious little local observance 
in Cornwall. The people there used to take their crosses of palm 
to the shrine of Our Lady of JSTantswell, and when they had paid 
small fees to the priest in charge they were allowed to throw 
the palms into the well. If a cross floated, it meant that its 
owner would live through the year; if it did not, it meant that 
he would die. As the crosses must have been reasonably light 
and generally sure to float, it is easy to see how this would 
become a popular form of divination. It was also said in Corn- 
wall that if anybody did not have a palm in his hand on Palm 
Sunday he would some time have his hand cut off. 

On Palm Saturday the boys of the grammar-school at Lanark 
used to parade the streets with a tree of the willow kind (Salix 
capred) in blossom, ornamented with daffodils, mezereon, and box- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 771 

tree. It is still customary, too, for those who make excursions 
into the country surrounding London to bring home some rem- 
iniscence of the day, by gathering branches of the willow or 
sallow with their gray shining velvety buds. With these they 
ornament their hats, their bonnets, and their breasts, or carry 
the branches in their hands. 

It seems likely at first glance that this custom did not origi- 
nally belong to Palm Sunday or Saturday at all, but was an 
adaptation of the more familiar and important May-Day ob- 
servance. 

At Eome the palms used are genuine palms, not boxwood- or 
olive-branches, as elsewhere, and these palm-leaves are many of 
them woven into all sorts of graceful shapes and adorned with 
interleaved lilies, roses, and tulips. The latter are for the well- 
to-do, who purchase them from the trafSckers crowding the steps 
of the basilica, and are fetched into the church to be blessed at 
the appropriate moment. The poorer classes content themselves 
with the plainer leaves that are handed out by the priests in the 
sacristy. 

The little village of San Eemo near Genoa has for centuries 
enjoyed the prescriptive right of furnishing all the palms that 
are used in St. Peter's Church. The right is said to date from 
the pontificate of Sixtus Y. This Pope had conceived the idea 
of transporting the obelisk which formerly ornamented the 
circus of Caligula and Nero to the middle of the piazza of St. 
Peter's. He publicly announced that the death-penalty would 
be inflicted upon any one who should, during the ceremony, dis- 
turb the silence that was necessary for overhearing the commands 
of the architect Fontana. l^ow, it happened that just as the 
obelisk was being raised in the piazza the hauling-ropes caught 
fire from friction. What was to be done ? JSTobody seemed to 
know. Then above the solemn silence rang out a voice, — 

" Acqua alle funi .'" (" Water to the ropes !") 

The advice was good, and was taken at once. The obelisk was 
saved. But the sbirri arrested the owner of the voice. He was 
brought before Sixtus Y. 

" What is your name?" asked the Pope. 

" Bresca of San Eemo." 

"You know that my ordinance punishes your action with 
death ?" 

" I know that at the peril of my own life I have saved the 
lives of hundreds of workmen whom the obelisk would have 
crushed in its fall." 

" Yery well. What reward do you wish for your service?" 

"Kothing for myself, but for my fellow-countrymen of the 
Genoese riviera, where superb palms grow, I ask that they be 



772 CURIOSITIES OF 

allowed to furnish the palms which are used during Holy Week 
in the solemn procession at the basilica of St. Peter's." 

" Granted," said the Pope, " not only in my pontificate, but in 
perpetuity under all my successors." 

And the promise of Sixtus Y. has ever since been respected. 

After the palms have been blessed and distributed, a proces- 
sion follows. The choristers in violet-colored soutanes and sur- 
plice lead. Then follow the seminarists, the beneficiaries of the 
basilica of St. Peter, the canons in surplice and rochet, the car- 
dinal archpriest in a white chasuble embroidered with gold. Each 
holds a palm-leaf in his hand. 

At a given signal the procession moves out of the basilica and 
makes the tour of the portico, chanting songs of joy. This is 
the " triumphal march." When the procession seeks to re-enter 
the church the door is found to be closed. It does not open 
until a subdeacon knocks against it with the handle of his cross, 
saying,— 

" Attollite portas principes vestras : et elevamini, portse seter- 
nales." 

Then the door swings open, and the procession moves up the 
aisle to the grand altar, where mass is celebrated. 

The closing and opening of the door not only symbolized the 
entry of Christ into Jerusalem, but also the larger truth of the 
assurance of salvation opened through the expiation of man's sins 
by the Eedeemer. It is repeated, in a less imposing manner, in 
all the Catholic churches in the world. 

In Spain Palm Sunday preserves all its picturesque mediaeval 
characteristics. The chief people in every town, as well as the 
middle and lower classes, take part in the ceremony. Each 
bears real palm-leaves and olive-branches. First the clergy go 
through a little performance intended to represent the reception 
of Christ at Jerusalem. They go out of the church by a side 
door, form in procession, make a tour around the building, and 
come to the main porch, called the Door of the Apostles. This, 
when they arrive, is closed. The priest knocks three times, the 
door is flung open, and the clergy enter, followed by all the 
crowd, the principal people coming first, bearing the palms. In 
the course of the service these are blessed by the priest in the 
presence of the archbishop. 

On the eve of Palm Sunday in Servia the young girls gather 
together upon a hill and sing ballads on the resurrection of 
Lazarus. On Palm Sunday itself before sunrise they repair to 
the well or fountain whence they draw water. Here they dance 
in a ring and sing in chorus songs wherein the poet tells how 
the horns of the stag disturb the water while its eye renders 
them pure and clear. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



773 



Palmknopen Festival. A popular prelimiuary to the mari- 
tal ceremony among the Netherlander^. Two days before a 
wedding, young people of both sexes meet at the house of the 
bride and weave garlands out of leaves of gold and silver, inter- 




Palmknopen Festival. 
(From Picart.) 



spersed with natural flowers, or entirely out of natural leaves 
and flowers. The festival is attended with kissing and other 
games. On the wedding day these garlands are thrown around 
among the guests. 

Panagia. (Gr. Tzavdyioq^ " all-holy.") In the Greek Church, 
the distinctive title of the Virgin Mary, as well as of her ikons, 
or effigies. The most famous of the latter is the Panagia at- 
tributed to St. Luke and preserved in the monastery of Sumelas 
in the Peloponnesus. It is said to have been found in a huge 
cavern by the \\o\j shepherdess Euphrosyne in the fifth century, 
and to have been acknowledged by St. Luke as his workmanship 
in a vision. A monastery was raised on the spot, the cavern 
Itself being turned into the church. For centuries this has been 
a favorite pilgrim-bourn of members of the Greek religion, who 
flock to the shrine of the Panagia on the yearly recurrence of 
her great festival day, the 27th of August in our calendar, the 



774 CURIOSITIES OF 

15th in theirs. At other seasons her visitors are comparatively 
few ; indeed, snow, rain, and mist render the convent almost in- 
accessible for full eight months of the twelve. The image is a 
rude alto-rilievo in wood. " A blackish outline," says W. Gilford 
Palgrave, "chiefly defined by the gold-leaf ground that limits 
head and shoulders, indicates the figure. Close beside it hang, 
obliquely from the ceiling, like masts in slings, two huge wax 
tapers, wrapped in some material, costly, but now undistinguish- 
able through its dingy encrustments. Near the tapers is also 
suspended an enormous circular chandelier of silver gilt, with a 
quantity of little ex-votos, silver boats, gold filigree ornaments, 
coins, and the like, dangling from its rim. We deposit the offer- 
ing that courtesy requires in the all-receiving platter before the 
Panagia, and are next called on to revere the special object of 
devout pilgrimage, a small silver rocking-cradle, of pretty but 
not ancient workmanship, consecrated to the goddess of the 
shrine. Into this cradle a piece of money (the more precious 
the metal the greater its efficacy) is to be laid ; after which the 
pilgrim, having thrice raised and lowered the toy and its con- 
tents on the palm of his or her hand before the unveiled Pan- 
agia, deposits it on the plate of offerings. Should the cradle 
when thus set down continue to rock, the happy votary will 
infallibly become before long a father or a mother, as the case 
may be ; its immobility, on the contrary, is a sad but conclusive 
presage of married sterility. Now, barrenness is at the present 
day no less an opprobrium in the East than it was in the age 
of Hannah and Pheninnah ; and its prevention or cure is the 
motive of far the greater number of pilgrimages to Mariamana; 
even newly married Mohammedans, not to mention Armenians, 
Latins, and other unorthodox Christians of either sex, prove by 
their frequent visits to the cradle of Sumelas how catching a 
thing is superstition. The residue of the pilgrims are mostly 
petitioners for the recovery of a sick child, or relative, or self, 
and for them also the cradle obligingly extends the subject- 
matter of its oracles. The origin of this particular observance 
probably does not go back farther than Comnenian times ; though 
the monks refer it, like the foundation of the convent itself, to 
the fifth century." (The Monastery of Sumelas: Frasefs Maga- 
zine.') 

The Greeks look upon the image as their especial patron. 
During the Saracenic wars she is alleged to have caused the 
guns of Sultan Murad lY., pointed against the convent walls, 
to spin round and begin firing upon the Sultan's own troops. 
Nor did she lose interest in her beloved country during the 
war of Grecian independence (1821-27). She is then reported 
to have spoken words of encouragement to the Greeks, to have 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 775 

rejoiced at every victory, and to have shed tears over every 
defeat. Her emotions during the war of 1897 have not yet 
found a chronicler. 

Panch-Kosi, or circumambulation of the city. The most 
solemn ceremony practised by the pilgrims to Benares. No 
pilgrim returns from the holy city without taking advantage of 
this soul-purifying ceremony. As the circuit is fifty miles and 
has to be performed on foot, it takes six days to get back to the 
starting-point, the Manikarnika Grhat, which is close to the burn- 
ing-places. The circuit being performed sunwise is in effect a 
pradakshina (^. v.). On the last day the pilgrim scatters on the 
ground grains of barley which he carries in a bag made for 
the purpose. This curious custom is in honor of Siva. On the 
theory that the pradakshina has a solar symbolism, and the circle 
gone over represents the yearly cycle, the barley may possibly 
mean the results of the sun's power, the food that is annually 
produced and scattered over the earth for the good of all man- 
kind. (Simpson : The Buddhist Praying -Wheel, p. 80 ; Sherring : 
The Sacred City of the Hindus, p. 178.) 

An imitation of the Panch-Kosi is performed at Bhuvaneswar, 
in Orissa. This is called Kshetra parikramana, or " Going the 
Round of the City." Dr. Rajendralala Mitra (^Antiquities of 
Orissa, vol. ii. p. 60) tells us that the circuit takes several days 
to accomplish. The Ekrama Purana, however, does not insist 
upon this large circuit ; it assigns the inner circle formed by a 
radius of one mile round the Great Tower as the proper boundary 
of the circumambulation ; but it recommends the operation to 
be repeated three times, and gives directions how it is to be per- 
formed, and what mantras should be repeated when starting on 
the journey. The religious merit of the operation is even greater 
than the performance of ten thousand horse sacrifices. All sins 
that might be contracted in other places are wiped away in vis- 
iting Svarnakiita (Khandagiri), but what are contracted in the 
last-named place can be destrpyed only by making the circum- 
ambulation of the sacred city. 

Pantaleon, St. (It. Pantaleone), patron saint of physicians. 
His festival is celebrated July 27. 

St. Pantaleon flourished in the fourth century, and was a 
native of ]N"icomedia. On account of his medical skill he was 
made physician to the Emperor Galerius Maximian. His mother 
was a Christian and had brought him up in that fj^ith, but amid 
the pleasures of the court he did not practise his religion. At 
length a priest called Hermolaus brought him back to the fold. 
He went about ministering to the poor and needy, and was ac- 



776 CURIOSITIES OF 

cused of being a Christian and condemned to be beheaded. He 
was bound to an olive-tree, and legend relates that as soon as 
his blood flowed to the roots of the tree it burst forth into 
leaves and fruit. 

In art he is represented as young, beardless, and handsome. He 
is often painted in the act of martyrdom and bound to an olive- 
tree. As a patron saint he wears a physician's robe and bears 
the olive or palm, or both. 

The body of St. Pantaleon was shown at Constantinople in 
970. The church of St. Gregory at Eome claims to possess part 
of the body, and the church of St. Pantaleon at Eome exhibits 
the skull of the saint, some bones, and a bottle of his blood 
which liquefies on his festival. At Eavello the same claim re- 
garding a bottle of the saint's blood is made. In the Dominican 
Church at Naples an arm of the saint and a bottle of his blood 
are shown. The church of the Apostles and the church of the 
Conception at Naples exhibit some of the bones of the saint and 
vials of his blood. Also San Ligorio at Naples claims to possess 
an arm of the saint. At St. Mark's, Venice, a hand and two 
bones of the head are shown ; in the church of St. Pantaleon, 
Yenice, a foot, leg, arm, part of the skull, and a finger, and in 
the church of St. Mary Magdalene, Venice, a leg-bone and part 
of an arm. The entire skull of the saint and a bottle of his 
blood are preserved at Lucca. The body of the saint is shown 
at La Bureba ; an arm at Brindisi ; part of the skull at Crema ; 
a jaw at Eavenna. The entire body, however, is at Genoa; 
and a number of bones are scattered about at Milan, Bruges, 
Luxemburg, Cologne, and other places. The head of the saint 
is shown at Lyons, and the rest of the body at St. Denis, near 
Paris. 

Pantheon Madonna, or Santa Maria della Rotonda. A 

miraculous image in the Pantheon at Eome. Until the begin- 
ning of the nineteenth century she had remained inactive and 
unimportant, only one small lamp shining dimly before her altar, 
which now blazes with the light of innumerable tapers, and not 
even a single votive offering adorning her person, which is now 
loaded with hearts, crowns, bracelets, and necklaces. One day 
the custos of the Pantheon had forgotten to feed the Madonna's 
lamp with oil, and towards evening after the doors w^ere closed 
the sacred flame expired. Suddenly the people in Ihe piazza 
heard from within the church a loud complaining cry for " Oglio ! 
oglio !" The^earers hastened to the custos, the doors of the 
sanctuary were opened, the want of oil was discovered, and the 
miracle proclaimed to the world. The custos narrowly escaped 
from the violence of the crowding worshippers, and on that 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 777 

same night tapers were lighted round the altar of the insulted 
image, which ever since has healed the sick and worked all 
sorts of miracles. 

Paray-le-Monial. A town in the French department of 
Saoneet-Loire. The chapel of the Convent of the Visitation is a 
famous pilgrim shrine as containing the tomb of a nun named 
Marguerite Marie Alacoque (1647-1690), who saw visions in a 
neighboring grove of nut-trees. She claimed that Christ ap- 
peared to her, bestowed on her the tenderest names, offered her 
his bleeding heart, and took her own. Extraordinary colloquies 
passed between the nun and the vision : " What shall I do ?" she 
asked one day. " My will is stronger than I am." " Place it," 
said the Divine Spouse, " in the wound in my heart, and it will 
there find the force to triumph over itself." " O my God," cried 
the maiden, in transport, " put it there indeed and enclose it so 
firmly that it will never come out." (Abb^ Cucherat : Popular 
History of the Beatified Marguerite Marie Alacoque, p. 349.) The 
Society of Jesus exploited the revelations of this enthusiast, but 
at first they met with considerable opposition from the hierarchy 
of the Church. She was finally beatified in 1864. In 1873 she 
was accepted as a sort of tutelar patroness of the Catholics and 
royalists, and the colossal pilgrimages organized in July and 
August of that year marched to wild shouts of "Long live the 
Pope-King," and "Long live Henry Y. !" A canticle had been 
composed for the occasion, of which the following was the 
refrain : 

Dieu de clemence, 
O Dieu vainqueur, 

Sauvez Kome et la France, 

Au nom du Sacre-Cceur ! 

(" God of clemency, 
O God the Victor, 
Save Kome and France, 
In the name of the Sacred Heart !") 

The legitimist deputies, with 1\i. de Belcastel at their head, 
invaded Paray. There they were met by M. de Charette and 
the Papal Zouaves. Pilgrims flocked from every diocese in 
France, many accompanied by their bishops. Even Belgium, 
Germany, and England sent their devotees. Every band of pil- 
grims brought rich banners, which they left upon the tomb of 
Marie Alacoque in the convent chapel. Daily and nightly pro- 
cessions were held. If all these ceremonials did not succeed in 
restoring Henry Y., they at least made the fortune of the church 
and the village. Even the pre-eminence of Lourdes has not yet 
entirely eclipsed the pilgrimages to Paray-le-Monial. 



778 CURIOSITIES OF 

Parentalia. Among the ancient Eomans the public festival 
in honor of deceased relatives, which lasted from the 13th to 
the 21st of February. During these days all the temples were 
closed, marriages were prohibited, and the magistrates had to 
appear in public without the tokens of their office. The last day 
had the special name Feralia. Other festivals in honor of the 
dead were celebrated on August 24, October 5, and November 8, 
when the Manes or souls of the dead were believed to rise to the 
upper world. On these occasions the graves were decked with 
roses, violets, and other flowers. 

Pasch, Pace, or Pase Egg, more familiarly known in Eng- 
lish-speaking countries as Easter Egg, an egg, real or artificial, 
prepared for Easter by being dyed or decorated. If a real egg, 
it is always hard-boiled. From the remotest ages the egg has 
been looked upon as a symbol of creation or new birth. Accord- 
ing to the Persians, the world was hatched from an egg at that 
season of the year which corresponds to the vernal equinox. 
Hence the Parsees still exchange gifts of colored eggs at the 
J^ew Year festival, which they celebrate on this date. Among 
the Jews, the egg entered into all the mysterious ceremonies 
called apocalyptic, and occupied a prominent position on the 
household table during the paschal season. Christianity invested 
the paschal egg with a new significance, namely, that of the 
resurrection of Christ, and it was colored red in allusion to his 
blood shed for sinners on the cross. A curious custom in medi- 
aeval churches for priests and choristers-^e^Qi^ ^^ ^ game of ball 
at Eastertide took its rise from the Pasch egg/WW.ch was thrown 
from one to the other of the choristers in the nave of the church 
while an anthem was being sung. As a missed egg meant a 
smashed egg, the more durable hand-ball was substituted. 

Formerly at the approach of Easter all the hen-roosts of 
France were ransacked for the largest eggs, which were brought 
as a tribute to the king. At the conclusion of the Easter high 
mass in the chapel of the Louvre,^lackeys brought into the royal 
cabinet pyramids of gilded eggs, placed in baskets adorned with 
verdure ; and the chaplain, after having blessed them, distributed 
them in the presence of His Most Christian Majesty to all the 
persons about the court. 

In some remote districts of France the priest still goes round 
among his parishioners to bless their homes at the Easter season. 
In return he receives eggs both plain and painted. In many places 
it is also believed that the bells which are silent during Passion 
Week have set out for Eome to get the Pope's blessing. They 
return on Easter Eve to welcome the Eesurrection with a joyous 
peal. People do not come back from so long a journey without 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



779 



bringing presents to good children. And in fact the joy-bells, 
which came first, bore with them eggs dyed scarlet like the cloak 
of a Eoman cardinal, which they gave to the heads of families 
for distribution among the children. The death-bells, which 
came last, brought nothing. 

In Anglesey, North Wales, the children go from house to 
house from Monday until Saturday in Easter week, announcing 




Easter Egg Ceremony in Russia. 



their presence by means of a clapper so that the door may be 
opened to them. If no eggs be in the house, the children are 
glad to receive the coppers of commutation. This custom was 
formerly prevalent not only all over Wales but also in many 
portions of England and Scotland. At Wilmslow an old rhyme 
was used : 



780 CURIOSITIES OF 

Please, Mr. Smith, 

Please give us an Easter egg. 

If you do not give us one, 

Your hen shall lay an addled one, 

Your cock shall lay a stone. 

In Northumberland, when a man asks a woman for an eg^ and 
is refused, he takes off her boots until she pays a penalty. If a 
man refuses a Paseh ogg to a woman, she snatches away his cap, 
and will not restore it until he pays a money-forfeit. 

IN'owhere is the Easter egg more in evidence than in Eussia. 
Here people carry a number of eggs with them when they stir 
out on Easter Sunday. These they present to their friends, 
saying, " Christ is risen !" the recipient replying, " He is risen 
indeed !" In the churches, after the service is over, priests and 
laymen click eggs together in the same way that we touch glasses, 
as a ceremonial indication of kindly feelings. 

In many parts of rural England and continental Europe 
various Pasch egg contests survive. A popular game consists in 
hitting one egg against another, the egg that survives uncracked 
winning for its owner the weaker antagonist, and so on until an 
entire basket of eggs may have changed ownership. Another 
game is to trundle eggs down a hill or slope, those which reach 
the bottom uncracked being similarly victorious over the others. 
A survival of the latter custom occurs in America at Washington, 
where from the beginning of the century it has been the custom 
for children to gather on the White House grounds every Easter 
Monday and trundle Easter eggs down the slope. 

The use of artificial eggs made of sugar or filigree and en- 
closing quantities of bonbons or other more sumptuous gifts has 
for the past half-century been encroaching upon the true Easter 
egg. In all the large cities of Christendom the confectioners' 
stores rival one another in their efforts to turn out the daintiest 
and most attractive Easter eggs. Sometimes these are of mam- 
moth size and cost. 

Paschal Candle. A huge torch of wax which in ancient 
times was used to give fight during the watchings of the con- 
gregants on Easter Eve or Holy Saturday. Its origin goes at 
least as far back as the time of Zosimus, who was made Pope in 
417, and the " Exultet" or triumphal song which the deacon still 
sings in the act of blessing the candle is hardly less ancient : 
Martene attributes it to St. Augustine. The blessing is now 
performed on Holy Saturday by the deacon, who fixes in the 
candle five grains of blessed incense in memory of the wounds 
of Jesus and the precious spices with which he was anointed in 
the tomb. From Easter until Whitsunday the Paschal candle 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 781 

appears on the Gospel side of the altar during mass and vespers, 
as a symbol that Christ, the light of the world, has risen from 
the grave. Anciently this torch was a huge affair. In 1457 that 




Blessing ti.s Paschal Candle. 
(From Picart.) 

at Canterbury weighed three hundred pounds, and the height 
of the one at Norwich was so great that it was lighted by means 
of an orifice in the roof of the choir. 

Passing or Soul Bell. A bell that was rung or tolled for a 
person who was dying, — i.e., who was passing from this life to 
the next, — to bespeak the prayers of all good Christians for the 
soul about to leave its mortal body. The bell was also popularly 
believed, says Grose, " to drive away the evil spirits who stood 
at the bed's foot and about the house, ready to seize their prey, 
or at least to molest and terrify the soul in its passage, but by 
the ringing of the bell (for Durandus informs us evil spirits 
are much afraid of bells) they were kept aloof, and the soul, Hke 
a hunted hare, gained the start, or had what is by sportsmen 
called law. Hence, perhaps, exclusive of the additional labor, 
was occasioned the high price demanded for toUing the greatest 
bell of the church, for, that being louder, the evil spirits must 
go farther off to be clear of its sound, by which the poor soul 



782 CURIOSITIES OF 

got so much more the start of them ; besides, being heard farther 
off, it would likewise procure the dying man a greater number 
of prayers." 

After the Eeformation and until the time of Charles II. the 
passing bell was still retained. In the " Advertisements for due 
Order" passed in the seventh year of Queen Elizabeth occurs 
the following : " Item, that when anye Christian body is in 
passing, that the bell be tolled, and that the curate be spe- 
ciallie called for to comforte the sick person ; and after the time 
of his passinge to ring no more, but one shorie peale, and one 
before the buriall, and another shorte peale after the buriall." 
Bishop Hall thus apologized for the preservation of the custom : 
" We call them soul bells, for that they signify the departure of 
the soul, not for that they help the passage of the soul." 

The number of strokes of the passing bell was usually so 
regulated that bearers might determine the sex and social condi- 
tion of the dying or dead person. Thus, the bell was tolled once 
for a child, twice for a woman, and>thrice for a man. 

Passion Play. The Oberammergau Passion Play is the most 
celebrated, although by no means the sole, survival of the medi- 
aeval Mysteries now existing in Christendom. In the Middle 
Ages the clergy endeavored to give to religious rites, especially 
to those connected with Easter and the other great festivals of 
the Church, a highly dramatic character, and did not hesitate to 
add to the popular interest in these sacred representations b}^ all 
kinds of buffoonery and burlesque, in which the devil and his 
imps played the part of clowns. There were performances called 
" Diableries," in which only devils in the garb of harlequins ap- 
peared, and which bore about the same relation to the ordinary 
Mystery that the ballet in the modern theatre does to what is 
called the legitimate drama. 

The jests which these histrionic troupes from the infernal 
regions indulged in and often improvised, and in which the 
peccadilloes of priests were not spared, were often very obscene, 
but always amusing to the multitude. Indeed, in the more 
serious plays the conversations in heaven were coarse and un- 
seemly. In 1210, Pope Innocent III. tried in vain to suppress 
the performances, and forbade the use of churches and eccle- 
siastical vestments for such purposes ; the only result of this 
prohibition was that they were held out of doors in temporary 
buildings erected in front of the churches and attracted larger 
throngs than ever before. 

Even the Eeformation did not abolish them. Both Luther 
and Melanchthon favored the dramatization and representation 
of Biblical subjects. " These spectacles," says the Eeformer in 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 783 

his " Table-Talk," " strike the imagination of the people through 
their eyes and move them far more powerfully than public 
preaching." He then adds, "If Christians avoid the theatre on 
account of the coarse jests and indecencies which the plays con- 
tain, the same scruple should prevent them from reading the 
Bible." 

Hans Sachs, the friend of Luther and the poet of the Eeforma- 
lion, in his " Comedy of Eve's Unequal Children" is guilty of as 
gross incongruities and anachronistic absurdities as can be found 
in any Papal Mystery. 

As is well known, the Passion Play of Oberammergau origi- 
nated in vows taken by the pious villagers in 1633 that if the 
pestilence then devastating the mountain valley should be stayed, 
they would give, every ten years, a representation of the Passion 
of our Saviour "for the grateful reverence and edifying con- 
templation of the public." The chronicler relates that, in con- 
sequence of this solemn pledge, " no more died of the plague, 
albeit the plague-marks were upon many when the vow was 
made." Such sacred plays were at that time still quite common, 
and were regarded as highly meritorious acts of piety, like build- 
ing a church, founding a cloister, endowing an altar, or going on 
a pilgrimage to the shrine of some saint. That the vow of the 
Oberammergauers took this form was due to an impulse of artistic 
feeling developed and transmitted through many generations in 
a community of wood-carvers. 

With the growth and diffusion of the spirit of modern civiliza- 
tion these relics of medigevalism gradually withdrew from the 
lowlands into the highlands, like rude aborigines taking refuge 
in the mountains from the advance of a superior invading foe. 
It was not uncommon for these Passion Plays to last two or 
three days, and one was given in 1514 at Botzen, in the Tyrol, 
the representation of which took a whole week. Early in the 
present century an earnest eifort was put forth by the ecclesias- 
tical authorities in Southern Germany to suppress what was 
regarded as the scandal of the Passion Plays. When, in 1810, a 
deputation from Oberammergau came to Munich to obtain the 
usual permission to give such representation, the Bavarian 
government refused to grant it. As this request had been 
hitherto considered a mere form, the peasants were taken by 
surprise, and after vainly beseeching the highest dignitaries of 
the Church to revoke their decision, and meeting only with rude 
rebuffs, they applied directly to the king, the good-natured and 
paternal Max Joseph, who received them graciously, and finally 
acceded to their desire, on condition that the play should be 
purged from everything that might be an occasion of offence. 

The old mediaeval text was accordingly subjected to a thorough 



784 CURIOSITIES OF 

revision by a Benedictine monk, and later another priest gave it 
its present unity of design and of religious doctrine, as well as 
its present perfected form of dramatic action, — the latest adapter 
avowing that " the labor was performed for the love of the divine 
Redeemer, and with but one object in view, the edification of the 
Christian world." Edward Devrient, a well-known German 
actor and critic, was the first to call public attention to the play 
in Germany in 1851, and the general reading public of America 
first heard of its existence six or eight years later, when the 
novel of " Quits," by the Baroness Tautphoeus, published in 1857, 
devoted an entire chapter to Oberammergau and its sacred 
drama. 

Until about 1830 the performances were given in the open air 
and in the village churchyard, but now they take place in a vast 
theatre and upon a platform which is partly covered by a roof; 
beyond and about this artificial stage the on-lookers get occasional 
glimpses of natural scenery, which, when the weather is favorable, 
add greatly to the interest and realism of the play. " During 
the entire representation," wrote Hans Christian Andersen in 
1860, " we had had alternate rain and wind, all the while cloud}^ 
weather; but by chance, just as the Christ was lowered into 
the grave, the sun broke forth, and illumined the stage, the 
spectators, the whole surroundings. Birds sang and flew, here 
and there, over us. It was a moment one never forgets." 

An especially curious variant of the old Mystery Plays still 
recurs annually in the Eoman Campagna during Holy Week. 
The whole population of every village takes part. In the first 
place a despairing woman is seen wandering about the streets 
crying, in tones of agony, " My Son ! my Son !" and covering her 
face with her blue mantle. She is followed by the crowds in the 
streets, who ask, "What is it?" "The Madonna has lost her 
Son," comes the answer. As the multitude pass down every 
street and alley of the place, all the windows of the houses 
along the road are thrown open, and questions and answers are 
exchanged between those within and those outside. Then those 
inside the houses wring their hands, tear their clothes, and untie 
their hair, while the Madonna's cry of " My Son ! my Son !" fills 
the air. The Madonna stops at every house, and asks, " Have 
you seen him ? Oh, if you are mothers, answer me." Some- 
times an answer comes, " Yes, I am a mother ; bless my children !" 
and the Madonna kisses them on the forehead. Sometimes, in 
her despair, she falls on her knees and prays aloud, while those 
around her kneel, beat their bosoms, and recite the Lord's 
Prayer. 

By and by a boy runs to the Madonna from afar. His face is 
dirty, his feet are muddy, and he wears a long white robe, with 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 785 

paper wings tied to his shoulders. He is an angel, and has come 
from above to tell the Madonna that he has seen the Saviour. 
'•He was alone, talking to himself, and had a gold hoop on his 
head. There he is!" says the boy. "There he is! He is coming 
here!" The Saviour kneels to his mother, who raises him and 
clasps him in her arms. Jesus wears a red tunic and a blue 
mantle. His hair is long, and he has a beard. A crown of gold 
paper encircles his head. After this comes the death of the 
Madonna, who is carried into the little church on a carpet of 
herbs and flowers. Four tapers burn round her, and she has lilies 
in her hand and a golden crown upon her head. At dawn two 
angels descend from heaven and stand by the altar. They wear 
helmets of gold paper, and are dressed in white robes. Their 
feet are bare, and they carry wooden swords and tin shields. 

Then the young girls of the place raise the body, which is an 
image made of straw, with the head, hands, and feet of stucco. 
The eyes are of glass, and the hair is red and curled in several 
rows. The body is covered with a white satin robe embroidered 
with gold ; the feet are covered with silk stockings and satin 
shoes, and a blue mantle, bestarred with silver, falls from the 
shoulders. Thus attired, the image is placed in a crystal coffin, 
and before this is closed every one whispers a wish in the 
Madonna's ear, and the children promise her that they will be 
good. 

Every day during Passion Week the Christ is being tormented 
and persecuted. But during the few moments' peace which his 
persecutors grant him he goes about comforting those who are 
suifering. He is accompanied by St. John the Baptist, who 
wears a goat's skin and carries a stick in the shape of a cross. 
At the corner of every street Jesus stops and tells a parable in 
the dialect of the place. He also gives little sermons in dialect. 
He educates, advises, and comforts all who go to him. (^London 
Vanity Fair, April, 1897.) 

The most extraordinary of all Passion Plays is performed in 
certain remote parts of the 'territory of New Mexico by an 
order of Indian converts which is an oif^hoot from Spanish 
Catholicism but is now looked at askance by the Church. This 
is known as The Penitent Brothers (Los Hermanos Penitentes). 
They make their head-quarters at the little village of Taos, New 
Mexico. 

All during Holy Week they inflict cruel, self-torture upon 
themselves. On a hillock at some distance from the " morada," 
or brotherhood house, is planted a cross to represent Calvary. 
Day after day processions march thither and back again, the 
members doing penance before the cross by lashing their backs 
and applying thorny cactus to their bare flesh. The crowning 

60 



786 CURIOSITIES OF 

event occurs on Good Friday. From many applicanls a victim 
is selected to represent Christ. The parts of Peter, Pontius 
Pilate, Mary, and others are assigned to other applicants. At 
two o'clock a procession starts slowly on foot for " El Calvario." 
All are barefoot. Many are naked from the hips up. Half-way 
up the hill the " Christ" joins the procession. His only garment 
is a cotton or muslin sheet draped around his body. A crown 
of cactus thorns is pressed around his bleeding forehead. A 
cross of huge timbers is placed upon his back, and, bowed low 
under his burden, he takes his place at the head of the proces- 
sion. The man pants and gasps at times, but never looks up or 
speaks. On the way a pathway of broken stones has been made, 
and the most devout Penitentes walk over these with bare feet 
and never flinch. The counterfeit Christ is spit upon by any 
and all. Little boys and girls run ahead that they may more 
deliberately spit in his face and throw stones upon his bending 
form. 

When El Calvario is reached, the great, clumsy cross is laid 
upon the ground and the actor of Christ is seized and thrown 
upon it. The assemblage joins in a chorus of song while several 
Penitentes lash the man's arms, hands, and legs to the timbers 
with cords of cowhide. The bands are made as tight as the big 
muscular vaqueros and ranchmen can draw them. The ligaments 
sink into the flesh, and even cut so that blood runs out. The arms 
and legs become blue and then black under the awful binding, 
but not so much as a sigh escapes the lips of the actor. He 
repeats in a mixed dialect of Spanish and Indian the words 
uttered by Christ at Calvary, and bids his brothers to spare 
him not. 

When all is ready a dozen men lift, the cross and its human 
burden, and, carrying it to an excavation near at hand, they drop 
the base in the earth. The hole is quickly filled, and the Peni- 
tentes gather about the foot of the cross with uplifted faces. 
The women weep, and the children look on dumfounded. Some 
of the men mock and jeer the man on the cross ; others throw 
clods of sunbaked earth at him, and still others, feeling that they 
must have some part in the physical agony of the afternoon, call 
upon the multitude to lash and beat them. The invitation is 
never in vain, for there are strong arms and hands ever glad to 
lay the lash on the backs of the fanatics and to provide leaves 
of cactus to apply, to the swollen and bleeding flesh. 

In several localities in Colorado and New Mexico it was once 
the practice to nail the hands of the acting Christ to the timbers 
of the cross, but the Catholic priests of this generation put a 
stop to that. 

After the first half-hour of noise and flagellation about the 



• POPULAR CUSTOMS. 787 

cross at El Calvario the excitement dies away. The crucified 
man, whose arms and legs are now black under the bands, must 
be suffering indescribable pain, but he only exclaims occasionally 
in Spanish, " Peace, peace, peace," while tbe Penitentes, who 
have had no part in the self-abnegation and punishment, pros- 
trate themselves silently about the cross. A motion of the hand 
from the Pietro, and the spectators bow their bared heads in 
reverential attitude. 

Save for the hysterical sobbing, moaning, and suppressed sobs 
of the women, there is now not a sound. 

At sunset the procession is re-formed, and slowly wends its 
way back to the village. Some twenty of the leading Penitentes 
remain behind, and when the spectators and others have gone 
away they lift the cross from the earth and lower its burden. 
The cords of cowhide are removed, and the pseudo-Christ, who 
is now probably unconscious from long and dreadful bondage, is 
lifted from the timbers. 

Then, following the narrative of the scenes on Calvary, the 
body of the actor is wrapped about with a mass of white fabric 
and is carried to a dug-out cave in the hill-side near at hand. 
Several women, who have been appointed to impersonate Mary 
and Martha, follow some distance behind, all the time violently 
weeping and lamenting. 

In the cave the bleeding and tortured body of the chief actor 
is rudely nursed to strength. 

But it has sometimes happened that it never gives any sign 
of life and is never seen in public after it is carried into the 
" morada." 

Passover, or Pesach, known also as the Feast of Unleav- 
ened Bread. The first and one of the most important of the 
festivals in the Jewish ecclesiastical year. It begins on the 14th 
of the first month, Nisan (roughly corresponding to portions 
of March and April in the Christian year), and lasts for eight 
days. It commemorates the deliverance of Israel through the 
tenth and last plague, when God destroyed the first-born of 
Egypt (Exodus xii.). In Biblical times all males were bound to 
go up to Jerusalem to keep the Passover and make their offerings 
to God in the temple. 

The first day is given to preparation. All leaven and leavened 
bread is banished from the house, and the matzes (q. v.) are sub- 
stituted. To insure the removal of every kind of fermented food 
or liquor, the master of the house is in duty bound to make a 
strict search throughout the house on the eve of the 14th of 
Nisan. This is therefore called the Eve of Searching for 
Leaven. 



788 



CURIOSITIES OF 




iHE First Passover. 



Strict silence must be maintained during the search. After 
the master has gathered every crumb he can see, he declares 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 789 

that if any leaven remain it shall be null and accounted dust of 
the earth. About ten o'clock on the following morning all the 
leaven that was gathered must be burned. 

On the 14th the Paschal lamb is slain, in commemoration of 
the lamb which God commanded the Israelites to slay when 
about to deliver them out of bondage and whose blood they 
sprinkled on the door-posts of their houses to protect their first- 
born from the destroying angel. In allusion to the latter fact, 
the first-born male child if he be above the age of thirteen 
fasts for twenty-four hours before the great meal of the 14th of 
Nisan. 

This begins at nightfall, and marks the real beginning of the 
season, inasmuch as the Jewish day is measured from nightfall 
to nightfall. The table is set with three matzes, or passover 
cakes of unleavened bread, placed on a dish, each covered sepa- 
rately ; a dish containing part of the shank-bone of the lamb, 
roasted, symbolical of the Paschal offering ; a dish containing 
a roasted Qgg^ the symbol of creation and fecundity, the usual 
festival sacrifice ; a dish of charosheth, or chopped-up apples, 
almonds, and other fruit, representative of the mortar used by 
the Israelites in Egypt; and a cup of vinegar or salt water, and 
the green tops of horseradish or other bitter herb, which are 
eaten with charosheth in commemoration of the bitter oppres- 
sion suffered by the Israelites. Our roast lamb with mint sauce, 
it may be added in parenthesis, is the direct descendant of the 
Paschal lamb and its attendant bitter herbs. 

Four cups of wine must be drunk at special parts of the ser- 
vice, each draught having its own symbolism ; the cup must have 
at least the capacity of an Qgg and a half. At a solemn moment, 
the tallest goblet is filled to the brim, the doors are thrown open 
for the prophet Elijah, who may appear to announce the coming 
of the Messiah, and the words are said, " Blessed is he that 
cometh in the name of the Lord." Historians have traced this 
custom of opening the doors to the necessity of asking non-Jews 
to look in and see for themselves that no blood of Christian child 
was used in the ceremonial, — a monstrous charge which was 
often made. (See Hugh, St.) The Jews believe that they arc 
specially under the care of God at Passover. Some leave their 
doors open at night, as a token of trust in the Divine guardian- 
ship. 

At this time every Hebrew father is a king in his household ; 
he reclines on a throne, sometimes an easy-chair with pillows on 
the arms. As a sign of freedom, the celebrants lean on the left 
side when they drink the wine or take anything to eat from the 
Seder dish. One-half of the middle cake in the plate is broken 
by the father ; the other half, the " Afikuman," is reserved until 



790 CURIOSITIES OF 

after supper. Sometimes the mother or one of the children pre- 
tends to steal the " Afikuraan," and surrenders it to the father 
when he promises to grant whatever is desired. 

When every member of the household touches the dish con- 
taining the lamb bone and the egg, all recite together, " Lo, this 
is the bread of afiiiction which our ancestors ate in the land of 
Egypt ; let all those who are hungry enter and eat thereof, and 
all who are in distress come and celebrate the Passover. At 
present we celebrate it here, but the next year we hope to cele- 
brate it in the land of Israel." 

After the removal of the lamb bone, the youngest son asks 
the reasons for the celebration, and he is answered by a recital 
of the Haggadah, or Agadah, an account of the slavery under 
Pharaoh and the deliverance from Egypt, with digressions con- 
cerning Haman, Daniel, and the wise men of Bona Berak. In 
the homes of the wealthy this is often read from illuminated 
manuscripts ; the poor usually have printed books with quaint 
wood-cuts representing the miracles in Egypt, Moses burying 
the Egyptian, and other incidents of the narrative. At the 
mention of each plague the finger is dipped in wine and the 
drops sprinkled over the shoulder, in repudiation of the ten 
plagues of Egypt, which have been cabalistically magnified to 
two hundred and fifty. 

On the 15th of Nisan the counting of Omer (see Shebuoth) 
begins, and is continued for forty -nine days. The first two and 
last two days of the festival are kept by all Jews as strictly as 
the Sabbath, but on the four intervening days urgent business 
may be attended to. On the seventh day of the festival the 
description of the passage of the Eed Sea is read from Exodus, 
together with the song chanted by Moses and the children of 
Israel on that occasion. 

In Biblical times the 14th day of the month Yiar was ob- 
served as the Second Passover by such as were unable to keep 
the proper date on account of sickness or of unavoidable absence 
from home. 

Patrick, St. (Lat. Patricius ; Fr. Patrice), patron of Ireland, 
whose festival on March 17 is celebrated by Irishmen wherever 
they may happen to be. There is no other great saint in the 
Catholic hagiology about whom so much uncertainty exists. It 
is not even known whether March 17 is the date of his death or 
of his birth, though it is sometimes said to be both. The year 
and the place of his nativity are matters of dispute. Indeed, so 
many conflicting legends have been woven into his story that it is 
now generally assumed there were two or more St. Patricks who 
have been rolled into one. Patricius, the Latin name, simply 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 791 

means a patrician, and may have then been the sobriquet of any 
Christian apostle of aristocratic lineage. Nevertheless that there 
was some one commanding personality towards whom all the 
myths naturally gravitated is evident. This was probably the 
author of two brief fifth-century tractates, — one entitled his 
" Confession," the other his " Letters to Coroticus." According 
to the best authorities, this Patrick was born about a.d. 386 in 
the village of Nemphthur, just outside of Clastonbury, England. 
His father was a decurion, or town councillor. The favorite 
legend, however, makes him a native of Tours, in France, and a 
nephew of St. Martin. From the Confession itself we learn that 
in his sixteenth year he was carried away by pirates and taken 
to the north of Ireland, where he was sold as a slave. That he 
eventually became a noted Christian evangelist to the heathen in 
Ireland and rose to the rank of bishop is certain, but that he is 
the same person who helped to Christianize the west of Scotland 
and the Isle of Man is improbable. 

Opinions differ as to the exact time when Bishop Patrick 
began his ministrations in Ireland, but as to his immediate suc- 
cess there is abundant testimony offered by the old legends and 
more modern historians. 

He was a statesman as well as a priest, and addressed himself 
first of all to the chiefs, and through them reached the people. 
He understood, as did most of the early Christian missionaries, 
how to adapt the superstitions and the pagan rites which he 
found existing to the teachings of the Church, and one of his 
first doings was to light a Paschal fire on the Hill of Slane in 
opposition to a Druidical fire on the Hill of Tara, and the light 
from Slane eclipsed the light on Tara forever. His work in 
Ireland may be summed up by saying that he founded three 
hundred and sixty-five churches and planted a school by the 
side of each ; that he organized at least one archiepiscopal see, 
that of Armagh, consecrated two or more bishops, established 
one or two colleges, and civilized the people generally. 

The most popular of the legends regarding St. Patrick is that 
which gives him credit for driving all the snakes and similar 
vermin out of Ireland. Not only has it maintained its vitality 
better than many a sober truth could have done, but it has been 
strengthened and improved by successive generations of story- 
tellers and miracle-mongers. The story as current to-day is told 
in one of the most popular of Irish songs, from which the fol- 
lowing is an extract : 

There's not a mile in Ireland's isle where the dirty vermin musters ; 
"Where'er he put his dear forefoot he murdered them in clusters. 
The toads went hop, the frogs went flop, slap dash into the water. 
And the beasts committed suicide to save themselves from slaughter. 



792 CURIOSITIES OF 

Nine hundred thousand vipers blue he charmed with sweet discourses, 
And dined on them at Killaloo in soups and second courses. 
When blindworms crawling on the grass disgusted all the nation, 
He gave them a rise and opened their eyes to a sense of the situation. 

The Wicklow Hills are very high, and so's the Hill of Houth, sir; 
But there's a hill much higher still — ay, higher than them both, sir; 
'Twas on the top of this high hill St. Patrick preached the sarmint 
That drove the frogs into the bogs and bothered all the varmint. 

It seems that St. Patrick, wherever he went, was always pre- 
ceded by a drum, and the noise thus made attracted the people. 
In this the example of the saint appears to have been imitated 
by the modern Salvation Army. As Patrick was terribly in 
earnest, so was his drummer, — if he had a drummer, for the 
chronicles are rather vague as to this point, and sometimes we 
might infer that he whacked away at the instrument himself. 
At all events, just before going up to the hill to preach the ser- 
mon that was to finish the snakes the drum was beaten so vigor- 
ously that it burst. The theme and object of the discourse had 
been announced to the people, so they had assembled in great 
multitudes to see the miracle performed. As they had an idea 
that a good deal of Patrick's power lay in his drum, they were 
sadly disappointed at the accident, especially as a big black 
snake was seen gliding down the hill with his jaws distended, a 
leer in his ugly eyes, and a tremor in his whole body as if it were 
convulsed with laughtera But, as the story goes, an angel came 
down and patched up thS drum, the sermon proceeded, and all 
the reptiles vanished as if by magic. 

St. Patrick died at Saul, a place not far from Downpatrick, 
and in the abbey of the latter town his body was buried, amid 
the sorrow of the whole people. He had long looked forw^ard 
to death as a release from care and as a reward for his labors 
and trials. He had become blind and feeble. The saint's age 
at the time of his death has been the subject of very many in- 
tricate and ingenious calculations, and the estimates have run 
anywhere between eighty-eight and one hundred and twenty-one 
years. 

It is impossible to say when the 17th day of March in each 
year began to be set apart as St. Patrick's Day and observed as 
the popular holiday of Ireland. But, whatever may have started 
it, there can be no doubt that the day is a national holiday in 
Ireland and is observed with much enthusiasm, and that it re- 
news and intensifies the patriotism of the people. In most of 
the large cities of America it is celebrated by a parade through 
the streets of the Irish national societies and other citizens 
of Irish birth or blood. 

In Ireland itself the celebration is less formal, but more uni- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 793 

versal. The shahirock is worn everywhere, in commemoration 
of the fact that when St. Patrick was preaching the doctrine of 
the Trinity he nnade use of this plant bearing three leaves upon 
one stem as a symbol of the great mystery. In every household 
a plateful of the herb is placed upon the breakfast-table of the 
"master" and the "mistress," who are expected to "drown the 
shamrock" in generous draughts of whiskey and then send the 
bottle down into the kitchen for the servants. In Dublin 
the higher classes conclude the festivities of the day by attend- 
ing a great ball in St. Patrick's Hall, Dublin Castle. IsTone can 
be admitted who have not been presented and attended the 
viceroy's drawing-room ; and of course every one must appear 
in court dress or full uniform. In the smaller hamlets the local 
inn used to be a place of universal resort for young men. A 
" Patrick's pot" of beer or whiskey and a small allowance of 
oaten bread and fish to each were benevolently contributed by 
the host. All additional orders had to be paid for. " The 
majority of those who sought entertainment at the village inn 
were young men who had no families, whilst those who had 
children, and especially whose families were large, made them- 
selves as snug as possible by the turf fire in their own cabins. 
Where the village or hamlet could not boast of an inn, the 
largest cabin was sought out, and poles were extended horizon- 
tally from one end of the apartment to the other ; on these 
poles, doors purposely unhinged, and brought from the sur- 
rounding cabins, were placed, so that a table of considerable 
dimensions was formed, round which all sealed themselves, each 
one providing his own oaten bread and fish. At the conclusion 
of the repast they sat for the remainder of the evening over a 
' Patrick's pot,' and finally separated quietly." (Hone : Every 
Day Book, vol. ii. p. 386.) 

Patrick, Purgatory of St. According to mediaeval legend, 
there was an entrance to purgatory in a cave on the island of 
Lough Derg, Ireland. This was widely known as the Purgatory 
of St. Patrick, because it was to that saint that Christ revealed 
its existence, informing him that any one might go down into it 
who had the courage, and it should be for him as if he had 
passed through purgatory after death. The saint is said to have 
built a monastery about the entrance and to have secured the 
way with a strong iron gate. The fame of this spot was largely 
owing to a poem by Henry of Sal trey (circa 1153), which 
described the adventures of a certain Sir Owayne Miles, who 
took this opportunity^ of expiating his crimes and saw many and 
wonderful sights in the course of his pilgrimage to the nether 
world. The poem was translated into nearly all European Ian- 



794 CURIOSITIES OF 

guages, and it may have furnished Dante with a hint for his 
great work. Other visits to the cave are recorded at rare inter- 
vals. A few of the visitors published accounts of what they had 
seen and heard, which bore a great resemblance to the poem of 
Henry of Saltrey ; others confessed that they had seen nothing 
wonderful with their waking eyes, but on falling asleep had been 
visited with wonderful dreams, " different from those they were 
accustomed to in their chambers." At last, in 1496, a monk from 
Holland visited the place and reported to the Pope that it differed 
in no respect from an ordinary cavern, whereupon the Pope 
ordered it to be destroyed, and the order was carried out on St. 
Patrick's Day, 1497. (^The myth of St. Patrick's Purgatory un- 
doubtedly owes its origin to the hell- descents prevalent among 
all heathen nations. 

Patron Day. In Ireland and formerly in Catholic England 
the day of the saint to whom the parish church had been dedi- 
cated was called the Patron Day. This anniversary was one of 
the most important of all the festivals within the parish. Clergy 
and laity would meet within the church to implore the continual 
protection of the patron saint. In the churchyard the graves 
were cleared of weeds and adorned with flowers, the funeral 
dirge was renewed, and the worthy actions of the dead were 
recounted. Booths were erected here also, from which provisions 
were distributed by the charitable to those who had come from 
a distance to attend the services. The celebration was often ex- 
tended over two or even three days. But after the Eeformation 
in England the exercises of devotion at such meetings gradually 
gave way to profane amusements, and at last the Patron Day 
(or wake, as it was often called) was abolished in that country. 
In Ireland it continued with ever diminishing importance until 
1846, when the first great failure of the potato crop and the 
consequent immigrations from Ireland commenced a revolution 
in the traditionary customs of the Irish peasantry. At present 
there are only a few parishes where the Patron Day is observed. 

An interesting description of a Patron Day, or, as it is there 
called, a Consecration Feast, in the Bavarian Highlands is thus 
given by an eye-witness : " In the morning mass is read in the 
chapel. Grayly adorned, the little procession winds up the nar- 
row steps, a red flag flutters among them, and every one wears 
his holiday attire. Of course but a few enter the low portal, 
which is hung with garlands ; the rest remain grouped in the 
open air, and listen to the tones of the ' Agnus Dei' or the w^ords 
of the sermon. When the host arrives, the people fall on their 
knees. These are calmly joyful moments; the brook rolls itself 
more gently, the beeches themselves cease their murmurs. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 795 

" Thus ends the spiritual portion of the affair. But after mass 
come the pleasures of the world, with the joyful voice and the 
insolent strength of youth. The musicians lead the little pro- 
cession, which descends from the little church ; the lads pull 
their hats waggishly on one side, and the lasses come down with 
a lighter step than they went up. All sorts of things are going 
on below, for the entrance of the house has become a bar ; great 
casks stand ready, and are broken open with the hammer ; forms 
of lofty stature, carrying their jackets upon their shoulders, 
watch the operations with satisfaction ; and, in reality, there is 
no time to be lost for the first draught ; the dance may commence 
at any minute ; for the latter a flooring of planks has been laid 
down. Only a slight tap on the shoulder, and the fair maid fol- 
lows her lad into the tumult with joyful mien. Between ap- 
proving glances and aggressive hobnail shoes she steers skil- 
fully ; but, when a daring youth snatches at the scarlet flowers 
she wears in her bodice, she quickly casts down her eyes, and 
vanishes before he is aware of it. 

" As consecration comes but once a year, dancing is kept up 
pretty late ; when the stars begin to pale, then return home 
is first mentioned ; most of the girls ascend the same night to 
the pastures from which they came, and the wood-cutters go 
straight away from the feast to their work at four o'clock in the 
morning." 

In many Italian villages, especially in those within the limits 
of the old Papal* States, the feast of the local patron saint is the 
event of the year, and is chosen not only as a day of prayer but 
also as one of family rejoicing. The " military" turn out and 
bring their band to church with them ; petards are fired off in 
quick and deafening succession during the most solemn parts of 
the mass; the fair outside the church doors deals largely in 
devotional mementos of the patron saint, and the lemonade- 
and fruit-stalls are besieged in proportion as the beads and fruits 
are sold. At night a general illumination takes place ; Bengal 
fires are lit in every open place, and turn fitful colored gleams 
upon the rickety structure of church and cottage, while the 
peasants dance and sing in harmless glee, making this day a 
holiday for the body as well as for the soul. 

Paul Pitcher Day. The eve of St. Paul's Day, or Jsiuuavy 
24, is thus called by the tinners of Cornw^all from a custom they 
have of setting up a water-pitcher and pelting it with stones 
until it is broken. The men then leave their work and adjourn 
to a neighboring ale-house, where a new pitcher bought to re- 
place the old one is successively filled and emptied, and the even- 
ing is given up to merriment and misrule. 



796 CURIOSITIES OF 

On inquiry whether some dim notion of the origin and mean- 
ing of this custom remained among those who still keep it up, 
it was found to be generally held as an ancient festival intended 
to celebrate the day when tin was first turned into metal, — in 
fact, the discovery of smelting. It is the occasion of a revel, 
in which there is an open rebellion against the water- drinking 
system which is enforced upon them whilst at work. 

The boys of Bodmin used to parade the town with broken 
pitchers, and into every house where the door could be opened 
or had inadvertently been left so, they would hurl a " Paul's 
pitcher," exclaiming, — 

Paul's Eve, 

And here's a heave. 

According to custom, the first heave could not be objected 
to, but a repetition brought just punishment down upon the 
offender, if he could be caught. 

Paul, St. According to tradition, the great apostle to the 
Gentiles was beheaded on the same day that St. Peter was cruci- 
fied, June 29, and the day is known as that of St. Peter and St. 
Paul. But whether it was the same year, a.d. 64, or the next, is 
a matter of dispute. Paul has a separate feast on January 25, 
the anniversary of his conversion. 

The church of San Paolo delle tre Fontane, near Eome, is 
built over three fountains which are said to have sprung up at 
the three places where the head of St. Paul fell and bounded 
after being cut off by the executioner. It is said that the waters 
vary in warmth, the first, where the head fell, being hottest, 
while the two others, commemorating successive bounds, are 
cooler and cooler. The body of St. Paul was originally interred 
on the spot where now stands the church of San Paolo fuori le 
Mura, between the Ostian Gate and the Aqua Salvia, but ac- 
cording to one legend it was removed with that of St. Peter to 
the Catacombs and laid in the same tomb during the reign of 
Heliogabalus. Two hundred years later the Oriental Christians 
endeavored to secure them, but the Eoman Christians contended 
for them with success and removed them to the church of the 
Yatican, placing them together in a magnificent shrine which 
still remains in St. Peter's. 

The feast of St. Paul's Conversion, January 25, was formerly 
kept in London as a great processional occasion, especially during 
the reign of Queen Mary, who saw in it a symbol of the con- 
version of the realm back to the true faith. In the '' Chron- 
icle of the Grey Friars of London" we are told that on January 
25, 1555, " there was a general procession, with the children of 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 797 

all the schools in London, with all the clerks, curates and par- 
sons and vicars, in copes, with their crosses, also the choir of 
St. Paul's ; and divers bishops in their habits, and the Bishop of 
London, with his j^ontificale and cope, bearing the sacrament 
under a canopy, and four prebends bearing it in their grey 
amos ; and so up into Leadenhall, with the mayor and aldermen 
in scarlet, with their cloaks, and all the crafts in their best 
array; and so came down again on the other side, and so to St. 
Paul's again. And then the king, with my lord Cardinal, came 
to St. Paul's, and heard masse, and went home again, and at 
night great bonfires were made through all London, for the joy 
of the people that were converted likewise as St. Paul was 
converted." 

Among agriculturists all over Great Britain and Western 
Europe the feast had especial significance as a prognosticator of 
the weather for the entire ensuing year. This fact is the more 
remarkable as the day was ranked among the old almanac- 
makers as a dies ^gyptiacus, or unlucky day. The special 
knowledge of the future which it was believed could be derived 
from it was thus laid down in monkish Latin : 

Clara dies Pauli bona tempora denotat anni ; 
Si nix vel pluvia, designat tempora cara ; 
Si fiant nebulae, pereunt animalia qusequa ; 
Si fiant venti, designat proelia genti. 

There are several extant translations of these lines into French 
and English. Here is one of the English versions : 

If St. Paul's Day be fair and clear, 
It does betide a happy year ; 
But if it chance to snow or rain. 
Then will be dear all kind of grain ; 
If clouds or mist do dark the sky, 
Great store of birds and beasts shall die ; 
And if the winds do fly aloft, 
Then war shall vex the kingdom oft. 

Peer, Swearing in a Ne"w. This is one of the drollest cus- 
toms connected with Parliamentary usage. In the House of 
Commons when a new member is to take his seat everybody is 
cognizant of the matter and may be on hand to see and to con- 
gratulate. But a new peer drops into the House of Lords with 
a pretty air of accident, though the presence of Garter King- 
at-Arms and the bringing forth of the red cloaks slashed with 
ermine testify to a certain amount of preparation. The first 
intimation of the event that strangers receive is to behold pass- 
ing under the doorway to the left of the throne a little proces-- 
sion. Spiritual peers are usually escorted by the Primate and 



798 CURIOSITIES OF 

the Bishop of London, lay peers by the Prince of Wales and the 
Duke of Norfolk, hereditary Earl Marshal. In all cases behind 
them walk Black-Eod and Garter King-at-Arms. Lay peers 
wear their scarlet gowns, their precise rank being indicated by 
the varying number and disposition of the bars of ermine. 

The sponsors of the new peer lead him up in the first place 
to the woolsack, whereon is seated the Lord Chancellor in full- 
bottomed wig and gown, staring at vacancy. When addressed 
the latter gives a little start of surprise, receives from the new 
peer a document purporting to be his summons to sit as a peer 
in Parliament, and waves him over to a table where a clerk 
stands ready to swear him in. 

Then Garter King-at-Arms takes the lead of the procession. 
Supposing, as most frequently happens, the new-comer is a baron, 
he is led to the barons' seats, situate near the bar, remote from 
the woolsack. The ordinary way there is straight enough. 
But Garter King-at-Arms knows better than to violate all pre- 
cedent. Leading the procession tovrards the bar as if making 
straight for the barons' seats, he suddenly takes a turn to the 
right at the cross benches, the new peer immediately behind 
him, his sponsors following in single file. Black Rod bringing 
up the rear. Having made the full circuit of the benches in 
this part of the house, Garter King now heads for the barons' 
benches, the red-cloaked pack close behind him, as if the game 
were follow-my-leader. Skipping up the gangway, Garter King 
stops short of the topmost bench, passing along in front of it. 
In nine cases out of ten the new peer, however well drilled, 
attempts to follow him. But that is the wrong turn, and Garter 
King, knowing what would happen, is ready to direct the novice 
to take the next turn higher up, which lands him on the top- 
most seat. All this is in dumb show. Safely seated, the peer 
and his sponsors turn .their heads, which they have covered with 
their three-cornered hats, towards the woolsack. Three times a 
mutual salute of solemn hat-lifting passes between the Chancellor 
and the noble trio. Then the latter move back to the woolsack, 
the new peer is formally introduced to the Chancellor, kisses the 
latter's hand, and so passes out of the doorway, presently to 
reappear in every-day clothes. 

Penny Hedge, Planting the. A curious custom still ob- 
served in Whitby, Yorkshire, on the eve of Ascension Day. It 
is thus described in an extract from the Whitby Gazette of May 
28, 1870, quoted in Dyer's " British Popular Customs." " The 
formality of planting the penny hedge in the bed of the river 
Esk on Ascension Eve was performed on Wednesday last by Mr. 
Isaac Herbert, who has for fifty years discharged this onerous 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 799 

duty. The ' nine stakes,' the ' nine strout-stowers,' and the 
' nine gedders' have all been once more duly ' planted.' The 
ceremony was witnessed by a number of ladies and gentlemen, 
and that highly important functionary, the bailiff of the lord of 
the manor, Mr. George Welburn, of Fylingdales, was present, 
and blew the usual malediction, ' Out on you ! Out on you ! Out 
on you !' through the same identical horn which seventeen cen- 
turies ago roused with its lugubrious notes, on Ascension Eve, 
our ancestors from their peaceful slumbers. Whether the wood 
was cut at the ' stray head,' and with a ' knife of a penny price,' 
we are not able to say, but a good hedge was planted; and 
although each stake may not be quite ' a yard from another,' 
the hedge will doubtless be of such strength as to withstand 
the effect of the prescribed number of tides." 

Peter, St. The chief of the apostles, and, according to the 
claims of the Catholic Church, the first Bishop or Pope of Eome. 
His martyrdom, together with that of St. Paul, is celebrated on 
June 29. But his great feast is in August, known as the feast 
of St. Peter's Chains. Another festival, the Feast of the Chair 
of St. Peter, takes place on January 18 in honor of his formal 
establishment of the episcopate in Eome. 

To the gospel story tradition adds that St. Peter confounded 
Simon Magus, a famous magician among the Jews, by miracles 
far excelling all his sorceries. Simon endeavored to buy from 
the apostle the secret of how these were done. Peter indig- 
nantly spurned him. Then Simon destroyed his books and fled 
to Eome, where he became a favorite of Claudius and again of 
]^ero. Peter also came to Eome, and afterwards Paul. Again 
rivalry broke out betweea the magician and the apostles. At 
last Simon attempted to fly to heaven. He launched himself 
from a tower, and for a time was supported by a demon, but 
Peter knelt and commanded the fiend to release his hold, when 
Simon fell to earth and was dashed to pieces. In the church of 
St. Francesca Eomana at Eom^ there are two stones let into the 
wall bearing a double depression said to be the marks of Peter's 
knees made on this occasion. During the first persecution the 
Christians besought St. Peter to save himself by flight, which at 
first he consented to do. As he was leaving Eome by the Ap- 
pian Way in the early dawn, he met Jesus Christ. Casting him- 
self at the feet of his Master, he asked him, " Domine, quo 
vadis?" ("Master, whither goest thou?"). To which the Lord 
replied, " Yenio iterum crucifigi" ("I am coming to be crucified 
again"). Penitent and ashamed, Peter returned to the city and 
met his fate. The chapel of Domine quo Yadis, on the Appian 
Way, commemorates the scene and preserves the legend. 



800 



CURIOSITIES OF 



St. Peter and St. Paul were both thrown into the Mamertine 
prison. Here the centurions who guarded them and many pris- 
oners were converted. A miraculous fountain, still extant, sprang 
up at Peter's prayer to furnish water for the baptism. There is 
also still shown in the prison the impression of St. Peter's bead 
made in the wall when a jailer struck him. The chains with 
which the saint was bound are preserved in the church of San 
Pietro in Yincoli in Eome in a bronze tabernacle, and are exhib- 
ited on the festival of St. Peter in Yinculis on August 1. The 
reputed date of the martyrdom both of St. Peter and of St. Paul 
is June 29, a.d. 64. 

Paul, as a Eoman citizen, was beheaded. But Peter, because 
he was of low degree, was led out and across the Forum and over 
the Sublician bridge, up to the heights of Janiculus. He was then 
very old and weak, so that he could not carry his cross, as con- 
demned men were made to do. When they had climbed more 
than half-way up the height, seeing that he could not walk much 

farther, they crucified him. 
He said that . he was not 
worthy to suffer as the Lord 
had suffered, and begged them 
to plant his cross with the 
head downward in the deep 
yellow sand. The execution- 
ers did so. The Christians 
who had followed were not 
many, and they stood apart, 
weeping. 

When he was dead, after 
much torment, and the senti- 
nel soldier had gone away, 
they took the holy body, and 
carried it along the hill-side, 
and buried it at night close 
against the long wall of Nero's 
circus, on the north side, near 
the place where they buried 
the martyrs killed daily by 
[N'ero's wild beasts and in 
other cruel ways. They 
marked the spot, and went 
there often to pray. 

Thirty years later, Anacle- 
tus, a Pope who had been ordained priest by St. Peter, built a 
little oratory over the grave. That, it is said, was the beginning 
of St. Peter's Church. But Anacletus died a martyr, too, and 




St. Peter's Martyrdom. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 801 

the Popes after him all perished in the same way up to Eutychi- 
anus, whose name means something like " the fortunate one" in 
barbarous Greek-Latin, and who was indeed fortunate, for he 
died a natural death. But in the mean time certain Greeks had 
tried to steal the holy body, so that the Eoman Christians carried 
it away for nineteen months to the Catacombs of St. Sebastian, 
after which they brought it back again and laid it in its place. 
And again after that, when the new circus was built by Helio- 
gabalus in 219, they took it once more to the same Catacombs, 
where it remained in safety for a long time. 

Then came Constantine, who is said to have laid the foun- 
dations of the old church of St. Peter's, which afterwards stood 
more than eleven hundred years until it was replaced by the 
present basilica. He built it on the site of Nero's circus and 
over the little oratory of Anacletus. It was not till the days 
of Honorius, however, that the body of St. Peter was taken 
from the Catacombs and brought back for the last time, with 
great concourse and ceremony, and laid where its dust still rests 
in a brazen sarcophagus. 

The famous bronze seated statue of St. Peter in the great 
basilica at Eome, whose great toe is now nearly worn out by the 
reiterated osculations of centuries, has been a subject of much 
antiquarian dispute. Assertions have freely been made that it is 
a statue of Jupiter Capitolinus, and much heavy fun has been 
excited by ringing the changes on Punch's Punch-like pun of 
Jew Peter. But Mr. F. Marion Crawford, an excellent authority 
himself, claims that the weight of modern authority and artistic 
judgment is to the contrary : 

" The work cannot really be earlier than the fifth century?-, 
and is therefore of a time after Honorius and the disestablish- 
ment. Any one who will take the trouble to examine the lives 
of the early Popes may read the detailed accounts of what each 
one did for the churches. It is not by any means impossible 
that the statue may have been made under St. Innocent I., a 
contemporary of Honorius, in whose time a Eoman lady called 
Vestina made gift to the Church of vast possessions, the pro- 
ceeds of which were used in building and richly adorning nu- 
merous places of worship. In any case, since it is practically 
certain that the statue was originallj^ intended for a portrait 
of St. Peter, and has been regarded as such for nearly fifteen 
hundred years, it commands our respect, if not our veneration." 

The practice of dressing up this statue in magnificent robes 
on the feasts of St. Peter is connected with the ancient Eoman 
custom which required the censors, when entering upon office, 
to paint the earthen statue of Jupiter Capitolinus a bright red. 
But the connection lies in the Italian mind and character, which 

61 



802 CURIOSITIES OF 

cling desperately to external practices for their hold upon inward 
principles. It is certainly not an inheritance of uninterrupted 
tradition, as Eoman church music, on the contrary, most certainly 
is ; for there is every reason to believe that the recitations now 
noted in the Eoman missal were very like those used by the 
ancient Bomans on solemn occasions. 

On St. Peter's Day (August 1) the services are similar to those 
of Easter. But the congregation is different. Instead of the 
irreverent Easter tourists, rushing, pushing, laughing, and talk- 
ing as if entering an opera-house, the seats are thinly occupied 
by a sprinkling of men and women, habited mostly in black, and 
of peasants in gaudy attire, all of whom show by their respectful 
demeanor that they have come to pray and not to stare. 

Perhaps there is nothing more beautiful than the illuminations 
and fireworks with which St. Peter's Day is celebrated at Eome. 
Chief is the illumination of St. Peter's. *' The whole of this 
immense church — its columns, capitals, cornices, and pediments, 
the beautiful swell of the lofty dome towering into heaven, the 
ribs converging into one point at top, surmounted by the lantern 
of the church, and crowned by the cross — all are designed in 
lines of fire ; and the vast sweep of the circling colonnades, in 
every rib, line, mould, cornice, and column, is resplendent with 
light. On the cross of fire at the top waves a brilliant light, as 
if wielded by some celestial hand, and instantly ten thousand 
globes and stars of fire roll along the building as if by magic, 
and blaze into a flood of glory. It seems the work of enchant- 
ment. One would suppose the illumination to be complete, but 
ten thousand lamps are still to be illumined. Their vivid blaze 
harmonizes beautifully with the milder light of the lanterns ; 
while the brilliant glow of the whole illumination sheds a rosy 
light upon the fountains, whose silver fall and ever-playing show- 
ers accord well with the magic of the scene. Viewed from Tri- 
uita de' Monti the effect is unspeakably beautiful ; an enchanted 
palace seems to be hung in the air, called up by the wand of some 
invisible spirit. The girandola or fireworks from the castle of 
St. Angelo are equally magnificent. They begin with a tremen- 
dous explosion, representing the eruption of a volcano. Eed 
sheets of fire seem to blaze upward into the glowing heavens, 
and then to pour down their liquid streams upon the earth. 
This is followed by a complicated display of every varied device 
that imagination can figure, one changing into another, and the 
beauty of the first effaced by that of the last. Hundreds of 
immense wheels turn round with a velocity that almost seems 
as if demons were whirling them, letting fall thousands of hiss- 
ing snakes, scorpions, and fiery dragons, whose long convolutions, 
darting forward as far as the eye can reach in every direction, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 803 

at length vanish into air. Fountains and jets of fire throw up 
their blazing cascades into the skies. The whole vault of heaven 
shines with vivid fires, and seems to receive into itself innumer- 
able stars and suns, which, shooting up into it in brightness 
almost insufferable, vanish like earth-born hopes. The reflection 
in the calm, clear waters of the Tiber is scarcely less beautiful 
than the spectacle itself; and the whole ends in a tremendous 
burst of fire that almost seems to threaten conflagration to the 
world." Such is the account of the celebration of St. Peter's 
Day at Eome given by the author of " Eome in the Nineteenth 
Century." Apart from these illuminations there are religious 
ceremonies, which are conducted with all the pomp which marks 
the ceremonial of the Eoman Church in her chief seat. 

" One of the most remarkable incidents which occurred during 
my long residence in Eome," says a contributor to Blackwood's 
Magazine in May, 1829, "was the refusal of Naples, in 1788, to 
yield the accustomed annual homage to the vicegerent of Christ. 
In 1787, on the festival of St. Peter, I had seen this ceremony 
performed with all its accustomed pomp. The papal guards 
paraded in the piazza of St. Peter's ; the white horse, the repre- 
sentative symbol of Naples, was led into the church by Prince 
Colonna ; the Pope was borne in an elevated throne to the great 
nave, where the well-trained horse bent his knees before him in 
homage, while a purse of ducats, the yearly tribute of the king- 
dom of Naples, was humbly ofl^ered to the Holy Father. 

" On this occasion, however, the scene was widely different. 
The King of Naples had refused to acknowledge any longer his 
subjection to the Pope, oflfering at the same time to pay him the 
value of a horse, that he might purchase one, but declaring that 
never again should a white horse, in behalf of the kingdom of 
Naples, bend its knees to him in homage. 

"Notwithstanding this mortifying refusal, the papal guard 
paraded as usual in the piazza, and the Pope was carried on his 
lofty throne into St. Peter's ; b|it, alas ! no white horse appeared 
to do him homage. When the Tloly Father arrived at the spot 
where the horse had formerly knelt before him, a formal protest 
was read against this insulting refusal of the King of Naples, 
followed by a declaration that, notwithstanding this refusal, the 
Pope reserved all his rights and claims to the accustomed 
homage, &c., &c. 

" It was truly a piteous spectacle to see the head of the Eomish 
Church returning, in his throne, for the first time, without the 
homage of horse and man, so long annually ofl'ered to him on 
St. Peter's Day. The Holy Father, who had previously ex- 
hausted himself by a speech in the Consistory of Cardinals, 
looked unusually pale and infirm. There was, I thought, an air 



804 CURIOSITIES OF 

of mortified humility about him as he dispensed the benediction, 
and it appeared to me that be sought to excite, by his mien and 
gesture, a popular feeling for his insulted dignity. The Eomans, 
however, evinced no sympathetic indignation, nor indeed any 
feeling but mortification that the evening fireworks, always 
hitherto given on this occasion, would be discontinued." 

In England June 29 is known as St. Peter's Day, and local 
survivals of ancient Catholic customs are not uncommon. The 
most peculiar of these is at Nun-Monkton, in Yorkshire. It is 
thus described by a correspondent of Wotes and Queries, Fourth 
Series, vol. i. p. 361 : 

" The feast-day of l^un-Monkton is kept on St. Peter's Day, 
and is followed by the ' Little Feast Day,' and a merry time ex- 
tending over a week. On the Saturday evening preceding the 
29th a company of the villagers, headed by all the fiddlers and 
players on other instruments that could be mustered at one time, 
went in procession across the great common to ' Maypole Hill,' 
where there is an old sycamore (the pole being near it), for the 
purpose of ' rising Peter,' who had been buried under the tree. 
This effigy of St. Peter, a rude one of wood, carved no one pro- 
fessed to know when, and in these later times clothed in a ridicu- 
lous lashion, was removed in its box-coflSn to the neighborhood 
of the public house, there to be exposed to view, and, with as 
little delay as possible, conveyed to some out-building, where it 
was stowed away and thought no more about till the first Satur- 
day after the feast-day (or the second if the 29th had occurred 
at the back end of a week), when it was taken back in proces- 
sion again, and re-interred with all honor, which concluding cere- 
mony was called ' Buryin' Peter.' In this way did St. Peter 
preside over his own .feast. On the evening of the first day of 
the feast, two young men went round the village with large 
baskets for the purpose of collecting tarts, cheese-cakes, and eggs 
for mulled ale, all being consumed after the two ceremonies 
above indicated. This last good custom is not done away with 
yet, suppers and, afterwards, dancing in a barn being the order 
while the feast lasts." 

Peter's Chair, St. It was an ancient custom observed by 
churches to keep an annual feast of the consecration of their 
bishops, and especially of the founding of the episcopate in 
them. The Feast of the Chair of St. Peter is found in ancient 
martyrologies, and is celebrated on January 18, because St. Peter 
is said on this day to have taken the throne of his episcopate in 
Eome. An ancient wooden seat, said to be that of St. Peter, is 
preserved in the Vatican. 

On this solemn festival, which is celebrated in the church of 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 805 

St. Peter at Eome, the Pope used to be borne in his pontifical 
chair of state on the shoulders of twelve men, attired in vest- 
ments of gold and wearing the tiara. On each side of the Pope 
was carried a large fan of ostrich feathers into which were set 
the eye-like portions of peacocks' feathers, symbolical of vigil- 
ance and universal supervision. 

Peter's Pence, or Rome-Scob. (Lat. Denarius Sancti 
Petri.) The tax formerly paid annually to the See of Eome, now 
collected as a voluntary offering in every church of Catholic 
Christendom. The date, following the ancient precedent, is usu- 
ally on the feast of St Peter in Yinculis. The earliest docu- 
mentary evidence of it seems to be the letter of Canute (1031) 
sent from Eome to the English clergy and laity. Among " the 
dues which we owe to God according to ancient law" the king 
names " the pennies which we owe to Eome at St. Peter's 
[denarii quos Eomse ad Sanctum Petrum debemus], whether 
from towns or vills." Hence the tax must have been one of 
ancient standing in the time of Canute. But its exact origin 
is a matter of dispute. Matthew Paris in his "Two Offas" 
ascribes the grant to Offa, King of Mercia, who reigned from 
755 to 796, and says that it was paid for the support of the Eng- 
lish school and hostel at Eome. He adds that it was one silver 
penny for every family occupying land worth thirty pence a 
year. On the other hand, Layamon the poet ascribes the insti- 
tution to Ina, King of WesseXj who abdicated in 728. Eventu- 
ally it became general throughout England, being imposed on 
any family possessing twenty pence' worth of goods of any 
kind. It was extended to Ireland under the bull granted by 
Pope Adrian to Henry II., and was subsequently introduced into 
Poland, Prussia, and Scandinavia, though the Papal legates could 
never succeed in getting it paid regularly. Gregory YII. failed 
in his attempt to exact it from France and Spain. In England 
it seems to have been paid more or less regularly till the reign 
of Henry YIII., but for some time previously it had been re- 
garded as only a charity and was not enforced from the people. 
The Peter's Pence of modern days is a purely voluntary offer- 
ing, made by the faithful and taken up under the direction of 
their bishop for the maintenance of the Holy See. 

Philip, St. (It. Filippo.) Patron saint of Brabant and 
Luxemburg. His festival is celebrated on May 1 by the Eoman 
and on November 14 by the Greek Church. St. Philip was born 
at Bethsaida. Little is told of him in the Gospels, but legend 
relates that after the Ascension he preached in Scythia and then 
travelled to Hierapolis in Phrygia. Here he found the people 



806 CURIOSITIES OF 

worshipping a huge dragon as a personification of Mars. He 
held up the" cross and bade the dragon to disappear, whereupon 
it crawled out from beneath the altar and sent out such a fright- 
ful odor that many persons, among them the king's son, fell dead. 
Philip restored them to life, and the dragon disappeared. The 
priests of the dragon were so enraged that they bound Philip to 
a cross and stoned him to death. 

Polycrates states that he was buried at Hierapolis in Phrygia. 
An arm of St. Philip, it is said, was brought from Constantinople 
to Florence in 1204. His body is said to be in the church of SS. 
Philip and James in Pome. In art St. Philip is represented as a 
man of middle age with a scanty beard and a, benevolent face. 
His attribute is a cross, or a staif with a small cross at the top. 

Philip Neri, St. (It. Filippo Weri), founder of the Oratorians. 
His festival is celebrated on the day of his death, May 26 (1595). 

St. Philip Neri was born in Florence in 1515. When eighteen 
years old he went to Eome as tutor in a noble family. He became 
the friend and almoner of St. Charles Borromeo, and was influ- 
ential in the religious movements of his time. He gathered 
about him young men of family and learning who devoted them- 
selves to charity, and from, them he founded the order of Ora- 
torians. They were bound by no vows, and did not seclude 
themselves from the world. The son and heir of the Massimi 
family, in which St. Philip was tutor, fell ill, and the saint asked 
him if he was willing and resigned to die. The boy replied that 
he was. " Go in peace," said St. Philip, and the boy, it is said, 
immediately expired. On the 16th of March of each year the 
Palazzo Massimi at Eome is decorated for a festival in honor of 
this event, and the Pope sometimes officiates at the services. St. 
Philip died in 1595, after a long life devoted to the poor and the 
sick. He is buried in a chapel at Florence, and many miracles 
are reported as having taken place at his tomb. He was canon- 
ized by Gregory XY. in 1622. 

Pilgrimage. In the Catholic Church, a religious discipline 
which consists in making a journey to some place in order to 
adore the relics of a saint or to visit the scene of some event in 
sacred history. Among the ancient Eomans pilgrimages were 
made to pagan shrines, such as that of Jupiter Tyrius at Gades, 
of Jupiter Capitolinus at Eome, of Apollo at Delphi, and of Diana 
at Ephesus. The pilgrimages of the Jews to Jerusalem at the 
time of the great festivals were matters of precept and obli- 
gation. Pilgrimages are still performed by Mohammedans to 
Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, etc., and by Hindoos to a large num- 
ber of sacred places. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 807 

Catholic authorities carefully differentiate Christian from 
pagan pilgrimages. As Arnold and Addis point out in their 
'' Catholic Dictionary" (s. v.), the latter usually proceed on the 
assumption that the power of the divinity whose help is sought 
is locally circumscribed, but that within the limits of his own 
jurisdiction it is indefinitely great. The Christian creed, accord- 
ing to which " God is a spirit," to be sought and found •' not 
specially on this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem," but wherever 
the true worshippers approach him in spirit, might seem at first 
sight to afford little encouragement to pilgrimages. " Neverthe- 
less, so certain is it that religious impressions, blunted and weak- 
ened by the daily business of the market-place and the street, 
require in most minds to be often graven afresh (and that by 
means of impulses from without, for it would be vain to trust to 
the suflSciency of those coming from within), that the Church 
has from the first, while admitting the danger of abuses and 
taking measures to prevent them, approved the use of pilgrimage 
to holy places as a very potent help and incentive to a holy life. 
She also favors the practice, because she recognizes the undoubted 
fact that God has often granted, and still grants, interior and 
exterior favors, graces, and miracles, at particular places or 
shrines, to honor certain mysteries, saints, etc." 

The first recorded pilgrim is St. Alexander, who in the third 
century is said to have visited Jerusalem in fulfilment of a vow. 
But from the letters of Paula and Eustochium (included among 
those of St. Jerome) it would appear that from the date of the 
Ascension to their own time a continual stream of pilgrims had 
resorted to the Holy Places. 

The custom reached its height about the eleventh and twelfth 
centuries, when it was followed by all classes of society from 
kings to peasants. The Church granted privileges and indul- 
gences to those who visited certain places of devotion, and many 
made it their calling in life to go from one shrine to another. 

The more famous shrines towards which the currents of pil- 
grimage have set strongly are the Holy Places in Palestine (see 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Church of the Nativity), the 
various shrines of the Blessed Virgin, as Walsingham in England, 
Einsiedeln in Switzerland, Chartres, Eourvieres, and Lourdes 
in France, Mariazell in Germany, Loreto in Italy, Guadalupe 
and Montserrat in Spain, and Guadalupe in Mexico, and the 
shrines of saints and angels, such as St. Michael's at Monte Gar- 
gano, Italy, and in France, the English St. Thomas of Canter- 
bury, St. Andrew in Scotland, St. James at Compostella, and many 
others. 

Despite the vigilance of the Church, abuses undoubtedly crept 
into the mediaeval pilgrimages. A curious example came out 



808 CURIOSITIES OF 

during the examination for heresy of William Thorpe by the 
Archbishop of Canterbury in 1407. 

" Ungracious lousel !" said the archbishop, addressing his vic- 
tim, "thou favorest no more truth than an hound. Since, at the 
road at the north door at London, at our lady at Walsingham, 
and many other divers places in England, are many great and 
praisable miracles done, should not the images of such holy 
saints and places be more worshipped than other places and 
images where no such miracles are done ?" 

Thorpe was accused by Archbishop Arundel of having asserted 
that " those men and women who go on pilgrimages to Canter- 
bury, to Beverley, to Walsingham, and to any other such places, 
are accursed and made foolish, spending their goods in waste." 
Thorpe, in effect, admits such to be his opinion, and in justifying 
himself is led into the following lively description of what the 
fashionable pilgrimages of the time really were. 

" Examine," he says, " whosoever will, twenty of these pil- 
grims, and he shall not find the men or women that know surely 
a commandment of God, nor can say their Pater-noster and Ave- 
Maria, nor their Credo, readily in any manner of language.. The 
cause why that many men and women go hither and thither 
now on pilgrimages, is more for the health of their bodies than 
of their souls; more to have riches and prosperity of this world 
than to be enriched with virtues in their soul ; more to have here 
worldly and fleshly friendship than for to have friendship of 
God and of his saints in heaven." 

He contends that such persons as these, who spend much 
money and time in seeking out and visiting the bones or images 
of this or of that saint, do that which is in direct disobedience 
to the commands of God, inasmuch as they waste their goods 
partly upon innkeepers, many of whom are women of profligate 
conduct, partly upon rich priests, who already have more than 
they need. 

" Also, sir," he concludes, " I know well that when divers men 
and women will go thus after their own wills, and finding out 
one pilgrimage, they will ordain with them [arrange with one 
another] before to have with them both men and women that 
can well sing wanton songs, and some other pilgrims wall have 
their bagpipes ; so that every town they come through, what 
with the noise of their singing, and with the sound of their 
piping, and with the jangling of their Canterbury bells, and 
with the barking out of dogs after them, they make more noise 
than if the king came there away with all his clarions and many 
other minstrels." 

" Lewd wasel !" replied the archbishop, determined at all risks 
to defend all this unseemly merriment, " thou seest not far 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 809 

enough in this matter. I say to thee that it is right well done 
that pilgrims have with them both singers and also pipers, that 
when one of them that goeth barefoot strilieth his toe upon a 
stone and hurtethi hin\ sore, and maketh him to bleed, it is well 
done that he oi* his fellow begin then a song, or else take out of 
his bosom a bagpipe, for to drive away with such mirth the hurt 
of his fellow. For with such solace the travel and weariness of 
pilgrims is lightly and merrily brought forth." 

The archbishop was evidently of the mind of the host in 
Chaucer : 

Ye gon to Canterbury — 

The blissful martyr quitte you your meeds ; 

And wel I wot, as ye gon by the way, 

Ye shapen you to talken and to play ; 

For truely comfort ne mirth is none 

To riden by the way dumb as the stone. 

Pilgrimages to Eome are still kept up with many of the old 
usages by the inhabitants of Italy and the neighboring countries. 
These are generally made at Easter, but sometimes on St. Peter's 
Day or the anniversary of the Pope's election, when the illumi- 
nation of St. Peter's is repeated as on Easter Sunday. 

The great hospital of the Holy Trinit}?- is thrown open for a 
week to the pilgrims, who are there fed and housed by thou- 
sands. A confraternity of ladies and gentlemen, both Eoman 
and foreign, have the management of this charity, and wear a 
distinctive costume while engaged in these hospitable duties. 
This consists of a scarlet apron of common twill with a cross 
on the shoulder, the garment covering the figure entirely in 
its spreading folds, and resembling a dressing-gown in shape 
and amplitude. Men and women alike wear this, and so ar- 
rayed serve their guests in separate wards of the vast building. 
During the day they may be seen guiding them to the different 
shrines of the city, and in the vast and gloomy recesses of St. 
Peter's. 

Every evening the scene at the hospital is the same, but only 
the newly arrived pilgrims are admitted to the Lavanda (q. v.), or 
" washing of the feet." This custom is very ancient, and used 
to be much more extensively carried out than at present. Even 
in our day, at least during Holy Week, its observance involves 
no sinecure. The pilgrims of course have made all or the greater 
part of their journey on foot, and the chaussure of many of them 
is extremely primitive, such modern improvements as shoes 
and stockings being replaced by long linen bands swathed about 
the feet in coils full twenty or thirty yards long, until a sufficient 
thickness is reached to protect the flesh against the inequalities 
of Italian mountain roads. Still these mummy-like swath ings 



810 CURIOSITIES OF 

are not wholly proof against the continued friction of stones and 
sticks, so that when the wayfarers arrive at the hospital these 
rags are often soaked in blood and clotted dust. The pilgrims 
are immediately led to a basement room furnished with a low 
continuous wooden settle skirting the wall, and numberless 
wash-basins with coarse soap and strong towels to each. The 
members of the confraternity accompany them, and, removing 
their bandages, carefully wash their sore and bleeding feet in 
warm water. 

This washing of the feet is continued throughout the evening 
by some portion of the members, as there are always enough 
pilgrims to refill the basement room as fast as it is emptied. 
Those whose feet have been washed are then conducted to a long 
refectory full of deal tables with coarse white table-cloths, where 
an ample supper of bread and meat is provided. After the meal 
the remnants are thus disposed of: every pilgrim cuts open a 
small loaf, and, taking out the greater part of the crumb, eats 
it at once, thus making room for the remainder of his or her 
portion of meat, which is kept over and serves for breakfast in 
the morning. When all have been cared for, a procession is 
formed of the total number of guests, and the members of the 
confraternity lead them to the vast, airy dormitories, where they 
help the old and infirm to bed. Litanies and hymns are sung 
in the mean while, and a more peaceful, orderly scene can hardly 
be imagined. This institution, though not so old as some other 
hospitals, yet brings to one's mind the similar but probably ruder 
establishments of the early Middle Ages. The hospital built by 
good King Ina of the West Saxons in the seventh or eighth 
century, and served by himself in person, was one of these, and 
was specially devoted to the Saxon pilgrims who in those ages 
of faith readily undertook the toilsome journey to Eome. This 
pilgrimage would sometimes be made as an act of expiation for 
violence done to a neighbor, sometimes as a pledge of future 
good conduct or a thanksgiving for some boon obtained by 
prayer. When pilgrims began to fail, scholars took their place, 
and young and needy boys were collected in the hospital and 
lodged gratis, while they picked up an education hap-hazard at 
the lectures of the different colleges of Eome. Gradually the 
hospital itself was transformed into a college, and, though de- 
stroyed in one of the ruinous invasions of Eome by pagan and 
undisciplined hordes, nevertheless survived as an institution, 
being rebuilt by the Saxons and becoming the germ of the pres- 
ent English College. All other nations had the same national 
hospitals for pilgrims, all under the special protection of their 
respective sovereigns ; and most of these underwent the same 
wise transformation into colleges when the needs of the age 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 811 

made learning the summum honum in the eyes of the rising 
generation. 

Religious pilgrimages are much in vogue among the Hindoos. 
Besides the ordinary festivals observed in most of the temples, 
to which all the pious of the adjoining districts flock, there are 
special festivals at particular places — such as the great festivals 
at Ramisseram, held at intervals of twelve and sixty years re- 
spectively — to which pious Hindoos flock from a great distance. 
Attendance at the car-festival at Juggernaut is thought to eman- 
cipate the soul at death from the evils of future birth. Sacred 
spots and places are likewise made the objects of pilgrimage. 
Such is Hurdwar, where the Ganges emerges from the Himalaya 
into the plains ; such are the holy cities of Benares and Allaha- 
bad ; such also is the spot in Southern India where Sita, the con- 
sort of Rama, went through the ordeal of fire to test her conjugal 
purity. At this latter spot multitudes flock together from every 
part of India, on the auspicious occasions, to bathe in the sea, in 
the full belief of attaining special favor from heaven. There is 
a temple at Gungotri, far up in the Himalayas, to which pilgrims 
i-esort, though they find there no other shelter than a few wooden 
sheds, and caves in the adjoining cliffs. Kedernath, in the same 
snowy locality, is also visited by pilgrims; and here a score 
of devotees annually sacrifice their lives, either by precipitating 
themselves from a certain precipice, or by proceeding into the 
snowy mountain-wastes until they perish from cold and hunger. 
Still higher in the mountains, and consequently deserted for half 
the year, is another goal of pilgrimage, the lonely temple of 
Badrinath, — standing with its glittering gilded spire and balls 
amidst the snows, with the icy peaks of Roodroo Himala tower- 
ing above it to the height of twenty-three thousand feet. The 
great object of all Hindoo pilgrimages is to obtain purification 
from past sins and exemption in the future life from transmi- 
gration. These pilgrimages often occupy months in the per- 
formance, and to meet their expenses the Hindoo sometimes 
borrows money at high interest, pledges his jewels, etc.; and 
becomes impoverished for life. Thousands never return, per- 
ishing by the way, and leaving their bodies to be devoured by 
the vulture and the jackal. But their fate deters no one, — so 
great is the glory of those who return in safety. Shaving all 
the hair off their heads and bodies, and rubbing themselves with 
holy ashes, the returned pilgrim devotees march stark naked 
through the town, accompanied by flags and music, and followed 
by crowds of admiring young people of both sexes, who offer 
to them incense and presents, say prayers to them, and regard 
them as superior beings. [To the Hindoos, it has been truly 
said, immortality is not so much a belief as a certainty. In con- 



812 CURIOSITIES OF 



n 



sequence, the present life appears a smaller thing to them than 
to any other people in the world ; and what is it to risk the 
fleeting breath of earthly life in pilgrimages, when the spiritual 
recompense is believed to be so great, and when the personal 
ovation upon return is so excessively flattering and so lull of 
worldly advantages ? 

Pillar, The. (Sp. El Filar.) The name popularly given to 
one of the cathedrals in Saragossa, Spain, on account of the 
holy pillar preserved here. According to legend, the apostle 
James {q. t;.), when preaching the gospel in Spain, fell asleep on 
the site of this church, October 12, a.d. 40. During his sleep 
the angels caught up the Virgin Mary, then dwelling in Pales- 
tine, transported her to Saragossa on a jasper pillar, and carried 
her back again, after she had desired him to raise a chapel on 
the spot. St. James awoke, and, lo ! the pillar stood before him 
as an evidence that his dream was true. The chapel was built, 
and to it the Virgin often came afterwards to mass. 

The holy pillar is kept covered up with a casing in a chapel in 
the centre of the cathedral. At the back there is a hole in the 
casing, through which the faithful may, kneelii)g, peep at and 
kiss the sacred marble. Here a large dent is worn by multitudi- 
nous labial devotion. The marble steps are also foot- and kiss- 
worn. An image of the Virgin and Child carved in dark wood 
surmounts the pillar. All around the shrine are suspended votive 
offerings, mostly models in wax or silver of afflicted members 
healed by the intercession of the Virgin. October 12, the anni- 
versary of her descent, is the greatest festival of Saragossa. 
Then pilgrims of all ages and both sexes crowd in from the 
neighboring country and even from the remotest parts of Spain. 
The battle-hymn of the Aragonese soldiers used to run as follows : 

La Virgen del Pilar dice 
Que no quiere ser Francesca, 
Que quiere ser capitana 
De la gente Aragonesa. 

(" The Virgin of the Pillar says that she does not wish to be a Frenchwoman, 
that she wishes to be a captain of the Aragonese people.") 

Pinkster Day. (From Dutch Pinkster, " Pentecost," or Whit- 
sunday.) A holiday, or often a series of holidays, celebrated at 
Whitsuntide in Colonial and early New York, and to some extent 
in Pennsylvania and Maryland. E'o where was it a greater fes- 
tival than in Albany, especially among the negro population, to 
whom it was eventually abandoned by the whites. Capitol Hill, 
which was the centre of the celebrations, was then universally 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 813 

known as Pinkster Hill. Here the booths and sports were 
opened on Whitsun Monday, white curiosity-seekers being on 
that day the chief visitors. On Tuesday the blacks all appeared. 
Great was the consumption of gingerbread, cider, and apple-jack. 
But the chief feature was the dancing, an evident importation 
from Africa. Munsell tells us that for nearly fifty years the 
leader was a darky known as Old King Charley, said to have 
been a prince in his own country and to have survived to the age 
of one hundred and twenty-five. " On those festivals, old Charley 
was dressed in a strange and fantastical costume ; he was nearly 
barelegged, wore a red military coat trimmed profusely with 
variegated ribbons, and a small black hat with a pompon stuck 
on one side. The dances and antics of the darkies must have 
afforded great amusement for the ancient burghers. As a gen- 
eral thing, the music consisted of a sort of drum, or instrument 
constructed out of a box with sheepskin heads, upon which old 
Charley did most of the beating, accompanied by singing some 
queer African air. Charley generally led off the dance, when 
the Sambos and Phyllises, juvenile and antiquated, would put in 
the double-shuffle heel-and-toe break-down." From other authori- 
ties it seems that the dance was called the Toto Dance, and par- 
took so largely of savage license that it gradually came to be 
shunned by respectable whites. In 1811 the Common Council of 
Albany prohibited the erection of booths, as well as all dancing, 
gaming, and drinking, on Pinkster Day. The enforcement of 
this statute eventually drove the holiday out of existence. 

Cooper in his " Satanstoe," a tale of Colonial ISTew York, calls 
Pinkster the great Saturnalia of the blacks. "Although this 
festival is always kept with more vivacity at Albany than in 
York, it is far from being neglected, even now, in the latter 
place." He tells us that it lasted three days, the negroes flocking 
for miles around to what is now City Hall Park. In Brooklyn, 
it seems, they gathered around the old market near the ferry. 

"On Long Island," says Alices Morse Earle in her " Colonial 
Days in ISTew York" (1896, p. 199), " the Dutch residents also 
made the day a festival, going to pinkster fields for pinkster 
frolics, exchanging visits and drinking schnapps, and eating 
' soft-wafels' together. About twelve years ago, while driving 
through Flatlands and l!^ew Lots one beautiful day in May, I 
met a group of young men driving from door to door of the 
farm-houses, in wagons gayly dressed with branches of dogwood 
blossoms, and entering each house for a short visit. I asked 
whether a wedding or a festival were being held in the town, 
and was answered that it was an old Dutch custom to make 
visits that week. I tried to learn whence this observance came, 
but no one knew its reason for being, or what hohday was 



814 CURIOSITIES OF 

observed. Poor Pinkster ! still vaguely honored as a shadow, a 
ghost of the past, but with your very name forgotten, even 
among the children of those who gave to you in this land a 
name and happy celebration !" 

Plough Monday. The first Monday after Epiphany (q. v.) 
is still celebrated under this name in some parts of rural Eng- 
land and Scotland. Anciently it marked the farmer's resump- 
tion of the severer arts of husbandry after the Christmas dissipa- 
tions, just as St. Distaff's Day marked his good wife's return to 
her domestic vocations. In Catholic times the ploughmen kept 
lights burning before images in the churches, so as to secure a 
blessing upon their work, and went about in procession from 
door to door begging money ostensibly for the support of their 
plough-lights. The Eeformation put a stop to the lights, but 
not to the collection, which was now frankly and openly spent 
in the tavern. New details had been added year by year to the 
Plough procession, as it was called, until by the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, when the festivities reached their final 
development, they formed quite an elaborate affair. 

A plough called the Fool Plough, bedizened with ribbons and 
other decorations, was dragged through the streets or roads by 
thirty or forty ploughmen similarly decorated, and with their 
shirts over their jackets. In front strode one of their number 
fantastically attired as an old woman, who was known as Bessy. 
A fool with his fool's-cap, a masker wearing a fox's skin over 
his head, and a band of morris-dancers or other mummers, occa- 
sionally attended the vanguard. Then followed a procession of 
as many ploughmen as cared to join, and frequently threshers 
carrying their flails, reapers bearing their sickles, and carters 
with long whips. Bessy, jumping and dancing, rattled a box as 
a stimulus to votive offerings, and the rest followed, making all 
the noise they could. At the larger farms ale and other refresh- 
ments would be given, as well as money. Even the 'smaller cot- 
tagers threw a few pence into Bessy's box. Woe to any substan- 
tial householder who refused. The ground in front of his house 
would be ploughed up by the angry yokesmen and left brown, 
bare, and ridgy. 

Tusser's " Five Hundred Points of Husbandry" alludes to a 
rivalry on this day between ploughman and servant-maid which 
still has its local survivals. Tusser's words are, — 



Plough Munday, next after that twelf-tide is past, 
Bids out with the plough ; the worst husband is last. 
If plowman get hatchet or whip to the skrene, 
Maids loseth their cocke, if no water be seen. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 815 

Which are thus explained in " Tusser Eedivivus" (1744, p. 79) : 
"After Christmas (which formerly, during the twelve days, was 
a time of very little work), every gentleman feasted the farmers, 
and every farmer their servants and task-men. Plough Monday 
puts them in mind of their business. In the morning, the men 
and the maid-servants strive who shall show their diligence in 
rising earhest. If the ploughman can get his whip, his plough- 
staff, hatchet, or anything that he wants in the field, by the fire- 
side, before the maid hath got her kettle on, then the maid loseth 
her Shrovetide cock, and it wholly belongs to the men. Thus 
did our forefathers strive to allure youth to their duty, and pro- 
vided them with innocent mirth as well as labor. On this 
Plough Monday they have a good supper and some strong drink." 
(See also Every Bay Book, 1826, vol. i. p. 71.) 

In the northern counties of England a custom formerly pre- 
vailed on Plough Monday that if a ploughman came to the 
kitchen-hatch and could cry, " Cock in the pot," before the maid 
could cry, " Cock on the dung-hill," he was entitled to a cock for 
Shrove Tuesday. (I^otes and Queries, Second Series, vol. i. p. 
386.) 

In Northamptonshire, according to Baker's " ]N'orthampton- 
shire Words and Phrases" (1854, ii. 1257), there used to be a 
custom on this day that when the ploughman returned from his 
labors in the evening the servant-maid would meet him with a 
jug of toast and ale ; and if he could succeed in throwing his 
plough-hatchet into the house before she reached the door, he 
was entitled to a cock to throw at Shrovetide ; but if she was 
able to present him with the toast and ale first, then she gained 
the cock. 

In the city of London the first Monday after the Epiphany 
was qnce a great state among the civic dignities, as being the 
day on which was held " the Great Court of Wardmote," for the 
purpose of receiving presentments from the several wardmote 
inquests and of swearing in constables. The aldermen were 
summoned to attend at the Guildhall in their scarlet gowns, and 
the lord mayor came in state from the Mansion House, accom- 
panied by the sheriffs. In the evening his lordship entertained 
the ofiicers of his household. The great silver bowl was intro- 
duced at the end of the banquet filled with punch, and " pyra- 
mids" of cakes and sweetmeats placed on the table with the 
dessert. Such as were not eaten by the guests were removed 
and divided into parcels for them to take home, in addition to 
which there was formerly given a piece of twelfth cake in a 
separate parcel. The custom of dividing the sweetmeats and 
cakes was continued down to the mayoralty of Samuel Wilson 
in 1839, but the twelfth cake was frequently omitted, and in that 



816 CURIOSITIES OF 

year the division of the sweetmeats, etc., was also done away 
with. The practice, however, both as to the sweet cakes and 
the shce of twelfth cake in a separate parcel, appears to have 
been again in force ten years later. 

" At the present day," says the London Athenceum, January 5, 
1889, " the Great Court of Wardmote continues to sit for the 
purpose of receiving returns of elections of members of the 
Common Council for the various wards of the City (the election 
itself having taken place on St. Thomas's Day, viz., December 
21 preceding), for hearing objections to any election, and for 
swearing in ward beadles, the city marshal, and extra constables 
not under the jurisdiction of the commissioner of police. All 
presentments of nuisances, etc., have ceased to be made to this 
court. The lord mayor still entertains the officers of his house- 
hold, but extends his hospitality to a large number of clerks 
employed in the various offices of the Corporation. In place, 
however, of the twelfth cake and sweetmeats, each guest is pre- 
sented with a box containing biscuits or preserved fruit, the box 
itself being sufficiently handsome, according to the taste and 
liberality of the lord mayor, to be afterwards converted to some 
useful purpose. A bowl of punch is always a conspicuous feature 
at this entertainment." 

Plymouth Rock. A famous rock or ledge on which the 
Pilgrims are believed to have landed when they first stepped 
from their boats in the harbor of what is now Plymouth, Massa- 
chusetts. (See Forefathers' Day.) The tradition that this is 
the identical rock was handed down from father to son. In 
1741 Elder Thomas Faunce, then an old man of ninety, came to 
make public protest against any injury to the rock from the 
building of a wharf, mentioning that it had been pointed out to 
him by some of the original Pilgrims. 

A circumstance which adds force to the tradition is that, in 
spite of Mrs. Hemans and her description of "the stern and 
rock-bound coast" of Plymouth Bay, this stepping-stone of the 
Forefathers is almost the only rock of any size to be found on 
these sandy shores. It is uncertain whether Elder Faunce and 
his forebears had in mind the landing of the exploring expedition 
of seventeen men which took place December 21, or that of the 
entire party from the Mayflower on January 4, 1621. But the 
former date is the one generally accepted, and the two events 
have become mingled into one in the popular imagination. 

In 1774 the rock was a passive, but none the less an important, 
factor in a stirring scene. British oppression had aroused the 
spirit of the old colony. The descendants of the Pilgrims de- 
termined to consecrate anew the stone which their forefathers 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 817 

had hallowed. On October 5 five thousand freemen assembled 
in Plymouth with the intention of removing the Rock to the 
centre of the Town Square. But while they were raising it in 
its bed it split in two. The colonists paused in dismay. Then a 
quick-witted whig hailed the omen as a sign of a speedy sunder- 
ing of the British Empire. The suggestion was hailed with en- 
thusiasm. The upper half was dragged by twenty yoke of oxen, 
amid thunders of applause, to the square in front of Pilgrim 
Hall. There it remained until 1880, when it was replaced on 
the original boulder in what is now Water Street. Over the 
reunited fragments rises a canopy of dressed stone supported by 
four columns. In the top of this are the bones of some of the 
original settlers, removed from Coles's Hill. 

Polycarp, St., Bishop of Smyrna. His festival is celebrated 
on January 26. 

St. Polycarp was converted to Christianity in the year 80, 
when quite young. He was a pupil of St. John, and was conse- 
crated Bishop of Smyrna by him in the year 96. In the sixth 
year of the reign of Marcus Aurelius that Emperor ordered a 
persecution of the Christians throughout his dominion. The 
Christians of Smj^rna were made to fight with wild beasts for 
the amusement of the populace. Polycarp was advised to with- 
draw from the storm, and he concealed himself for a time at a 
short distance from the city. The ofiicers bribed one of his ser- 
vants to reveal his hiding-place, and horsemen were sent by 
night to capture the saint. He received the soldiers with great 
courtesy, and set out refreshments for them with his own hand. 
On the way back to Smyrna the soldiers tried in vain to get him 
to recant. He was given another chance by the proconsul while 
the soldiers were preparing the stake at which he was burnt 
alive. But Polycarp steadfastly refused to recant, and so expired 
at the stake. The martyrdom occurred in the year 167. Soon 
after his death one of his followers, Irenseus, wrote an account 
of his life and death, and some of his congregation met together 
to settle as to how they should commemorate his memory. They 
agreed that they should solemnly keep the day of his martyr- 
dom every year, which they called his " birthday." This is 
probably the origin of keeping saints' days. St. Polycarp's tomb 
is still shown near Smyrna. 

Pope Ladies. A species of buns sold in Hertfordshire, Eng- 
land, on the feast of the Annunciation. This is a custom that 
dates from a remote antiquity. A legend thus accounts for 
their origin. A noble lady and her attendants were benighted 
while travelling on the road to St. Albans. Lights in the clock 

62 



818 CURIOSITIES OF 

tower at the top of the hill guided their steps to the monastery, 
and the grateful lady gave a sum of money to provide an annual 
distribution to the poor on Annunciation or Lady Day of cakes 
baked in the form of ladies. As this bounty was distributed by 
the monks, the Pope Ladies probably thus acquired their name. 
At the time of the Eeformation the dole came to an end, but the 
local bakers continued to bake and sell buns made on the same 
pattern. 

Popinjay, Festival of the. (Fr. La Fete du Papegai, the 
latter word being probably a corruption of the Italian pappa- 
gallo, " a parrot.") The papegai was generally a pigeon roughly 
carved in wood and set up on some high tower or other eminence. 
He who shot it away needed considerable skill, whether he used 
bow or arrow, as in the early days, or later a clumsy gun resting 
upon a high stand. He received the title of King of the Papegai, 
which he bore during the year, together with a silver chain from 
which hung medals of all the former kings of the Papegai, as 
well as a more substantial reward in the shape of an allowance 
for the year of his royalty. 

The festival of the Papegai was until quite a recent period 
celebrated at St. Malo in Brittany on the first Sunday in Lent. 
It was introduced there by the good Duchess Anne herself. 

Early in the fifteenth century it was no empty honor to be 
King of the Papegai and decorated as such by the duchess, for 
the town granted him an allowance varying in value from three 
hundred to five hundred dollars, a very considerable sum in 
those days. 

The festival of the Popinjay was one of the many importa- 
tions which the French alliance brought into Scotland. Eeaders 
of " Old Mortality" will remember with what ceremony Ladj^ 
Margaret Bellenden went to attend the festival in the county 
of Lanark on a May morning in the year 1679, and of the shock 
her pride received at the discomfiture of Goose Gibbie. Sir 
Walter says that the custom prevailed in Ayrshire down to his 
own time. 

Pradakshina. A ceremony of almost universal use in Brah- 
minical as well as in Buddhist ritual. This means going round 
with the right shoulder to the centre, which is the same turn as 
that given to the prayer- wheel (q. v.). Towns and fields and 
smaller objects are circumambulated in this manner, with bless- 
ing both to the devotee and to the object of his devotion. The 
great pilgrimage of the Panch-Kosi at Benares, one of the most 
important observances of the Hindoos, is simply a long pradak- 
shina performed around that city. Here the circuit lengthens 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 819 

out about fifty miles. As an every-day instance Mr. Simpson in 
" The Buddhist Praying-Wheel" cites the case of a Hindoo whom 
he saw making a pradakshina around a tulsi plant, which is held 
sacred to Vishnu. " It was growing on a mud pedestal carefully 
prepared for it, and around this he walked a number of times, 
with his right hand to the centre." 




CiRCUMAMBUL-ATING THE TULSI PLANT. 

(From Simpson's " The Buddhist Praying- Wheel.") 

He found that to go round in the opposite direction, or with 
the left hand to the centre, was the rule at death-ceremonies. 
It was on other occasions productive of evil. 

Now, it puzzled him to find that among the Semites, both 
Moslems and Jews, the custom is generally that of going round 
with the left side turned to the centre. He gives a tentative 
explanation that as in India the left hand to the centre is the 
rule in connection with the dead, the Semitic custom may have 
become the stereotyped rule from the practice of worshipping at 
lombs, which is knoAvn to be still a marked feature of Moslem 
faith. The Kaaba at Mecca, for example, is built in the sem- 
blance of a huge tomb, and the Moslem performs his pradak- 
shina around it in the reverse direction. 

From the East Mr. Simpson turned his attention to the West. 
He found an extraordinary parallel to the pradakshina in the 



820 CURIOSITIES OF 

Highlands of Scotland, where there is a custom now well-nigh 
extinct, but once extremely prevalent, known as the deisul (^. v.) 
or deasil. 

The bonfires which in many parts of Great Britain and the 
European continent are still lighted on St. John's Eve and other 
occasions furnish more analogies. It is frequently the custom 
for the celebrants to dance around them in a sunwise direction. 
Torches are revolved rapidly, so as to give the appearance of a 
circle of fire. Burning disks are whirled into the air. Wheels 
and barrels are eagerly sought for, lighted, and rolled down- hill 
as globes of fire. Blazing torches, barrels, or disks are carried, 
around a field or a town in order to bless it and keep it from 
harm during the ensuing season. 

Nay, may we not find another survival in the custom, well- 
nigh universal among gamblers, of turning a chair or walking 
around it in order to bring about a change of luck ? It may be 
noted that this turning is always from left to right. 

Prayer-Wheel. An instrument used chiefly among the 
Lamaist Buddhists for the purpose of offering prayers by me- 
chanical means. Prayer-wheels are of various shapes and sizes, 
from small cylinders turned by the hand to huge ones driven by 
water or wind. Long strips of paper with a written or printed 
formula repeated hundreds or even thousands of times are 
wrapped round these cylinders, and as the cylinders revolve the 
paper rolls uncoil, and so the prayer is said. 

Sometimes the wheels are monster cylinders worked with 
string and crank by a monk, sometimes a long row of small 
cylinders, ranged along the wall at such a height as to be within 
reach of passers-by, who give them a twirl and go on rejoicing 
in the consciousness of having earned the blessing of Provi- 
dence. Sometimes prayer-tubs are propelled by water-wheels. 
In other parts windmills perform the like service, while the 
smaller domestic prayer-wheels are often caused to revolve by 
the heated air over the fireplace. In short, it makes no differ- 
ence what is the propelling force, the Karma can be realized if 
only the circular motion be produced. The more rapid the revo- 
lution the greater the merit of the devotee. 

Most European writers have looked upon the prayer-wheel as 
a strange freak of superstition, an exceptional form of ritualism. 
Carlyle contemptuously alludes to it as the " Eotatory Calabash." 
Travellers have generally spoken of the grinding of prayers in a 
mill as an excellent subject for jokes. In 1896, however, Mr. 
William Simpson, in his " Buddhist Praying-Wheel," as he pre- 
fers to call it, set himself to show that it is but one offshoot 
from the common centre of an infinite variety of myths and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 821 

ceremonies, whose ramifications reach even into the Christian 
ritual. His conclusion is that the circular movement is sym- 
bolical of the solar motion, or, it may be, of the great revolv- 
ing circle of the heavens, in which the sun is a subordinate 
traveller. The virtue of the wheel lies in its being turned sun- 
wise, — i.e., from east to west, — or, to make matters more plain, 
in the direction which a man would take if he perambulated it, 
keeping the object always on his right. The reverse action 
brings evil and undoes any merit previously acquired by turn- 
ing the machine in the orthodox direction. (See Pradakshina 
and Deisul.) 

Presepio. (Gr. Krippe ; Fr. Creche, — all three words meaning 
"a manger.") The Latin and Italian and therefore the original 
name for a representation of the infant Christ lying in a man- 
ger, to which were subsequently added all sorts of accessories in 
the way of members of the Holy Family and other scriptural 
characters, both human and animal. The presepio is exhibited 
in churches or in the private houses of the wealthy at Christmas- 
time. It is said to owe its origin to St. Francis of Assisi, who, 
beginning with 1223, was wont to decorate a stable at Christmas- 
time with the principal scenes of the Nativity. In that stable 
so transformed he celebrated mass and preached to the people 
until the holy season was over. 

Subsequently the presepii spread throughout Italy and to 
Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, and Germany. They 
vary in size and expensiveness from the rude wooden figures of 
the Alpine goatherd, cut out with his own hands during the long 
winter evenings for domestic' use, to the pretentious representa- 
tions of the larger churches, with their elaborate carving and 
gilding, velvet drapery, and cloth of gold. In many parishes of 
Catholic Europe everybody contributes to the expense of fitting 
up the presepio. Moribund misers and others anxious to pur- 
chase their way into the next woi^ld frequently leave considerable 
sums for the further embellishment of the village presepio. 

A presepio in a Capuchin church in Eome is thus described. 
The Holy Family occupy the foreground. In the manger re- 
poses the Bambino, or infant Christ, over whom St. Joseph, 
holding a bouquet, and the Virgin, dressed in satin or lace, with 
blue veil and silver crown, bend admiringly. Around kneel 
sundry shepherds in the act of adoration, while overhead angels 
with golden wings float among the clouds, chanting the Gloria 
in Bxcelsis. A silver star with its comet-like trail directs the 
approach of the Eastern Magi, who, with their brilliant retinue 
of horsemen and attendants, dazzle the eyes of the juvenile 
spectators with their Oriental pomp and pageantry. Here a 



822 



CURIOSITIES OF 



ragged beggar stretches out a beseeching palm, and there a 
devout hermit kneels before a rustic chapel. In the background 
rise the mountains, dotted with villas and chalets, with flocks of 
sheep and goats grazing here and there upon their grassy slopes, 
w^hile peasants are everywhere seen approaching, bearing the 
products of the farm, the dairy, and the chase as their simple 
offerings to the new-born Child. 




Pbocession of the Manger. 



In some places in Bohemia the Krippe is used in private 
families as the receptacle of the toys and sweetmeats which the 
Christ-Child is fabled to bring in his chariot drawn through the 
air by four milk-white horses. Thus in a measure the Krippe 
takes the place of the Christmas-tree of the North. Dramatic 
performances, styled Krippenspiele, or " manger plays," are fre- 
quently indulged in by the members of the family. 

The original wooden presepio or crib wherein Christ was born 
in the Bethlehem stable is believed to be preserved in the church 
of Santa Maria Maggiore in Eome. 

According to tradition, the stone manger contained within it 
another of wood, which was used as a cradle for the infant 
Christ. That of stone still exists at Bethlehem, not in its primi- 
tive state, but decorated with white marble and enriched with 
magnificent draperies. The wooden one was in the seventh cen- 
tury, at the time of the Mohammedan invasion in the East, 
transported to Eome and placed in the basilica of Santa Maria 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 823 

Maggiore. Here it still reposes in a magnificent crystal shrine, 
mounted on a stand of silver enamelled with gold and precious 
stones, the splendid offering of Philip lY., King of Spain. The 
shrine itself is preserved in a brazen coffin. Once a year, on 
Christmas Day, it is carried around the church in procession on 
the shoulders of the officiating clergy, and then exposed to the 
veneration of the faithful on the grand altar. 

Primrose Day. The anniversary of the death of Benja- 
min Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, April 19 (1881), is observed 
throughout England under this name. Conservatives every- 
where appear decorated with primroses, and the statue of the 
former premier opposite the Houses of Parliament in London, 
as well as his tomb at Hughenden, is profusely decorated with 
primrose, laurel, and ivy, contributed by his admirers. Her 
majesty annually sends to Hughenden a large wreath of prim- 
roses, which are placed at the head of Lord Beaconsfield's grave 
by his nephew, Mr. Coningsby Disraeli, M.P. The Conservative 
clubs throughout the country are also decorated, the primrose 
being especially conspicuous everywhere. Yet there is no evi- 
dence that primroses played any important part in either the 
public or the private life of Lord Beaconsfield. Nor does he 
appear to have had any fondness for them. " Primroses ?" ex- 
claims Lord Aldegonde, in " Lothair :" " I believe they are good 
to make salad of" The Pall Mall Gazette in the days when it 
was a liberal organ made public the following explanation of the 
anomaly : 

" Apropos of Primrose Day and the very uncomplimentary 
allusions in Lord Beaconsfield's books to that flower, it may be 
worth while to recount the origin of the myth. When Lord 
Beaconsfield was buried, the queen sent a wreath of primroses, 
and wrote, on a card attached to the wreath, '_H^s favorite 
flower.' Her majesty referred, of course, to the late Prince 
Consort ; but her words were misunderstood to mean that the 
primrose was Lord Beaconsfield's favorite flower. Hence the 
newspaper allusions to ' the flower he loved so well,' and the 
annual celebration of Primrose Day. The explanation of the 
m3'th has long been current among Lord Beaconsfield's colleagues, 
but for obvious reasons they did not care to make it public." 

Processions. Ecclesiastical processions are of early origin 
in the Latin and Greek Churches. They were introduced into 
Constantinople by Chrysostom in a.d. 398 to counteract the 
effect produced by the Arians, who, being forbidden to use any 
churches in the city, were accustomed to assemble about the 
porches and march to their meeting-houses without the walls, 



824 CURIOSITIES OF 

singing anthems. By the fifth century processions had come 
into general use by the Church. Processions may be classified 
as extraordinary, ordered by ecclesiastical authority for some 
special cause, and ordinary, prescribed by 'the common ritual of 
the Church. To the latter class belong the processions on Can- 
dlemas, Palm Sunday, St. Mark's Day, three Eogation days, and 
Corpus Christi. (See these entries.) In Catholic countries these 
are elaborate parades through the streets of the city. In coun- 
tries where Protestantism prevails they only make the circuit 
of the church, or at most of the churchyard. 

Processions are very frequent in Italy, Spain, and other Cath- 
olic countries. Besides those on the days already mentioned, 
every church has processions in honor of the Madonna or some 
saint specially reverenced in that particular church. They make 
the circuit of the parish limits, passing through all its principal 
streets, and every window and balcony is decorated with yellow 
and crimson hangings and with crowds of dark eyes. The 
front of the church, the steps, and the street leading to it are 
spread with yellow sand, over which are scattered sprigs of box. 
After the procession has been organized in the church, they 
" come unto the yellow sands," preceded by a band of music, which 
plays rather jubilant and what the unco guid would call profane 
music, polkas and marches, and airs from the operas. Next may 
follow great lanterns of strung glass drops, accompanied by sol- 
diers ; then an immense gonfalon representing the Virgin at the 
Cross, or the local saint, which is borne by the confraternitd of 
the parish, with blue capes over their white dresses, and all hold- 
ing torches. Then follows a huge wooden cross, garlanded with 
golden ivy-leaves, and also upheld by the confraternitd, who stag- 
ger under its weight. Next come crucifixes followed by the 
frati of the church in black, carrying candles and dolorously 
chanting a hymn. Then mayhap comes the bishop in his mitre, 
his yellow stole upheld by two principal priests (the curate and 
subcurate), and to him his acolytes waft incense, as well as to 
the huge figure of the Madonna which follows. This figure is 
of life-size, carved in wood, surrounded by gilt angels, and so 
heavy that a dozen or so of stout facchini, whose shabby trousers 
show under their improvised costume, are required to bear it 
along. With this the procession comes to its climax. 

The Hindoos have celebrations of a not dissimilar sort. Pro- 
cessions of the idol-gods are the main features of the festivals 
in various holy cities of Southern India, The idols, decked with 
flowers, are carried about in gorgeously painted cars, generall}^ 
with two priests fanning them, preceded by dancing-girls, a band 
of noisj^ musicians, bareheaded Brahmins walking hand in hand 
and singing hymns in honor of the god, and the elephants of 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 825 

the temple, gay with crimson and orange trappings, their very- 
trunks elaborately painted for the occasion. Sometimes cannon 
fire at intervals ; and as the idol-god, thus escorted, approaches, 
the people shout, and in long lines throw themselves down before 
him in reverence. Half festival and half fair, it is a curious 
scene that spreads around. Toys, luscious sweetmeats, and betel 
are sold at the stalls ; numerous go-rounds and swinging boats 
perform their evolutions, filled with beautiful and artistically 
dressed children ; dancing-girls in their peculiar costume mingle 
in the crowd or dance before the idol ; youths leap past you with 
towers of flowers on their heads, and boys, dressed up like tigers, 
go springing about, the crowd rushing to and fro as if threatened 
by the actual animal. Self-torturing fakirs abound. Some have 
shoes stuck full of nails, but sing lustilj" and play on the vina ; 
others dance about, extinguishing torches on their bare breasts ; 
others swing to and fro aloft with a rope around their waist. 
Beggars and deformed or diseased children roam through the 
crowds, hideousl}^ painted to attract shuddering attention. At 
night fireworks are let oflP. Eockets course through the air. 
Pyrotechnic devices showing the figure of the god blaze in front 
of the temple where the idol reposes. The little temples in the 
middle of the tank are illuminated as the god is carried, amid 
the clash of cymbals, in nocturnal procession around the basin 
of flashing waters ; while the glare of innumerable torches, and 
the blaze of Indian lights, — white, blue, orange, and green, — 
change darkness into almost insufl'erable light. (See The Land 
of the Vedas^ by Rev. R. P. Percival.) 

Pulgen, or Crowning of the Cock. A simple Christmas 
ceremony which until the middle of the nineteenth century was 
commonly observed in Wales and still has a few local survivals 
in out-of-the-way districts. About three o'clock on Christmas 
morning the people would assemble in church, and, after prayers 
and a sermon, continue there, singing psalms and hymns with 
great devotion, until daylight. If through age or infirmity any 
were disabled from attending, they did not fail to say prayers 
and sing carols at home. 

Pumpkin, Festival of King. (Fr. Fete du Roi Potiron.) In 
September of every year a grotesque scene occurs in the Halles 
Centrales or Great Markets of Paris. A monster pumpkin, deco- 
rated with a crown of paper and tinsel and borne upon a board 
which serves for a throne, is carried in state through the airy 
corridors and along the wide outer pavements. The market- 
people gather around and pay obeisance to the royal vegetable, 
and afterwards King Pumpkin is mercilessly dissected, sold in 



826 CURIOSITIES OF 

slices at auction, and made into succulent soup which is eaten 
amid much Gallic merriment. 

Purdan. In Wales an ordeal through which unfaithful wives 
were obliged to pass. Covered with a white sheet, they were 
made to walk up the aisle of the parish church with their para- 
mours during the hours of divine service. This custom obtained 
in certain parts of South Wales till the middle of the present 
century. 

Purim (or " Lots"), Feast of. This occurs on the 14th day 
of the twelfth month (Adar) of the Jewish ecclesiastical year, 
and lasts fortj^-eight hours. It is immediately preceded by the 
Fast of Esther, on the 13th of Adar. The origin of both these 
observances is explained in the book of Esther. When Ahasuerus, 
King of Persia, put away his wife Yashti and took in her place 
the Jewish maiden Esther, who had been brought up by her 
cousin Mordecai, the latter together with his entire race excited 
the jealous animosity of Haman, the king's minister. Haman 
obtained from the weak-kneed king permission to wreak the 
full measure of his wicked will. He cast lots to decide the 
date, and, as the lot fell to the month of Adar, he issued orders 
that all the Jews in Persia should be put to death on the 14th 
of Adar, without regard to age or sex. In this extremity 
Mordecai entreated Queen Esther to intercede for her own 
people. Now, according to a law of the Persian monarchy, 
any person who entered uninvited into the king's presence was 
at once put to death, unless the king held out to the visitor 
his golden sceptre as a token of forgiveness. Esther deter- 
mined to brave the king's displeasure. But first she ordered 
that all the Jews in Shushan, the Persian capital, should hold a 
solemn fast. Then she approached the king. He extended his 
sceptre, listened to her pleadings, and in response ordered that 
Haman and his ten sons should be hanged, and that the Jews 
should have liberty to defend themselves against their enemies. 
Hence the Fast of Esther on the 13th of Adar and the Feast of 
Purim on the 14th, the latter being the date when the Jews of 
Shushan turned the tables upon their enemies. It is a time 
of great rejoicing, of balls' amateur theatricals, and tableaux, 
the proceeds of which are devoted to hospitals and other charities. 
The great Hebrew charity ball which is an annual feature of all 
the leading American cities occurs on this day. At the syna- 
gogues, the Megillah, a parchment scroll on which the book of 
Esther is written, is read both morning and evening. The 15th 
of Adar is also a day of rejoicing, of exchanging presents, and of 
giving alms to the poor. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 827 

Push- Penny. Under this title a curious custom was until 
recently sanctioned by the dean and chapter of Durham Cathe- 
dral, England. On Oak-Apple Day and Guy Fawkes's Day — 
respectively the 29th of May and the 5th of November — the 
senior verger of the cathedral would cast thirty shillings in 
copper pieces into the college yard to be scrambled for. The 
pupils of the Blue Coat schools were on these two dates drawn 
up in rank and file in the nave of the cathedral, for the inspection 
of the prebends, who minutely examined their new scholastic 
garments, after which the children were ushered into the choir. 
At the end of the service a pell-mell rush would be made for the 
cloister doors, in order to be present at push-penny. The germ 
of the custom dates to an unknown antiquity. In the old 
monastic period pennies used to be thrown to the citizens who 
were wont to assemble in the vicinity of the prior's mansion. At 
Bishop-Auckland the bishop was accustomed to throw away 
silver pennies at certain times of the year, and it is even said 
that so much as a peck of copper was in earlier times scattered 
broadcast among the people. The Eeformation, however, swept 
these and many other old customs away, but after the Eestora- 
tion of Charles II. the dean and chapter no doubt considered 
that the 29th of May and the 5th of November ought to be 
kept as days of rejoicing, and as one means of doing so caused 
one of their officials to throw a bagful of pennies to the people 
who met in the college. The custom survived until the middle 
of the nineteenth century. (Thiselton Dyer: British Popular 
■Customs, p. 303.) 

Pussy- Willow Fair. (Eussian, Yerhnaya Ydrmarka.) An 
annual fair held in the week preceding Palm Sunday at the 
JSTevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg. Its ostensible object is to 
provide the public with twigs of pussy-willow (the only plant 
showing a vestige of life at that season), which are used in lieu 
of palms on Palm Sunday. But it is now utilized for the sale of 
all sorts of cheap goods suitable for the coming Easter season,— 
paper roses for the Easter cake, confectionery, toys, imitation 
eggs, and the pascha, or Easter cake, made of cream and other 
delicacies tabooed in Lent, with which the long fast will be 
broken after the Easter matins. Finches and other song-birds 
are exposed in cages, and it is a pretty custom to buy them and 
set them free. The sites for the booths are the special privilege 
of soldiers' widows, who draw them by lot and may either use 
them or sell them as they elect. 

Pyx, Trial of the. The annual testing of the standard of 
gold and silver coins in the English mint. It is a very ancient 



828 CURIOSITIES OF 

custom, and derives its name from the pyx, or chest, in which 
the coins to be examined are kept. The mint-master was in 
former time simply a person under contract with the government 
for the manufacture of the coinage, and periodical examinations 
were consequently necessary to see that the terms of the con- 
tract had been complied with. Though he is now an officer of 
the crown, the manner of conducting the ceremony is substan- 
tially unchanged. The finished coins are delivered to the mint- 
master in weights called journey-weights, — i.e., 15 pounds troy 
weight of gold, containing 701 sovereigns, or 1402 half-sover- 
eigns ; of silver, 60 pounds troy. From each journey-weigbt a 
coin is taken, and placed in the pyx for the annual trial. The 
examination of the coins is made by the Goldsmiths' Company, 
under the direction of the crown, in the presence of the " queen's 
remembrancer," who administers the oath to the jury and pre- 
sides over the proceedings. The coins are compared with pieces 
cut from trial-plates of standard fineness, in the keeping of the 
" warden of the standards." If the coins are found to be of 
standard fineness and weight, within certain limits, a statement 
to that effect is testified to by the jurors, and handed over to the 
treasurer. The coins to be tested are kept in the ancient chapel 
of the pyx, at Westminster Abbey, in joint custody of the Lords 
of the Treasury and the Comptroller-General. This custom was 
first ordered during the thirty-second year of the reign of King 
Henry II. (1154-1189), and took place occasionally in subsequent 
reigns, whenever royalty chose to order it. King James was 
present at one of these ceremonies in 1611, There was one held 
at the Exchequer Office July 17, 1861, and the next, February 
15, 1870. During the year 1870 a coinage act was passed by 
Parliament, providing for an annual trial of the pyx, and the 
ceremony has been observed each year since then. 

In the United States the trial of the pyx is made at the mint 
in Philadelphia, on the second Wednesday of February annually, 
before the judge of the district court of the United States for 
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the comptroller of the 
currency, the assayer of the New York Assay Office, and such 
other persons as the President of the United States shall from 
time to time designate for the purpose. A majority of the com- 
missioners constitutes a competent board. Their examination is 
made in the presence of the director of the mint. The number 
of coins reserved for the assay from each delivery made by the 
chief coiner is prescribed by the director, and the reserved 
pieces, after being sealed up and labelled, are deposited in the 
pyx, kept under the joint care of the superintendent of the 
mint and the assayer, each of those officers securing it by an 
independent lock. The reserved coins from the coinage of other 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 829 

mints besides that at Philadelphia are transmitted quarterly to 
the Philadelphia mint, and, in addition to these, the director may 
at his pleasure take any other pieces for test. The commissioners 
are not sworn for the ceremony as in England, but after the 
examination they prepare a certified report of the trial, which, 
if the coins are within the limit of tolerance in fineness and 
weight, is satisfactory, and is simply filed ; but if not, the fact 
is certified to the President of the United States, and if on a 
view of the circumstances of the case he shall so decide, the 
officer or officers implicated in the error are thenceforward dis- 
qualified from holding their respective offices. 



Q- 

Quietus, St. This saint is memorable in the annals of the 
Catholic Church of America because the enshrinement of his 
bones in the church of Our Lady of Grace in Hoboken (Arch- 
bishop Bailey officiating) on June 1, 1856, was the first ceremony 
of the kind ever performed in the United Slates. The innova- 
tion provoked a lively newspaper discussion as to the devotional 
value of the bones themselves or the religious gain of the cere- 
mony attending their translation. Otherwise the saint has 
slight hagiological importance. He has not even a day set apart 
in the calendar. Almost nothing is known about him. His 
bones, together with a vase containing his blood and an epitaph 
recording his name (spelled Quetus) and his age, five years, were 
found in the cemetery of St. Pretextatus at Eome in January, 
1849. It is presumed that he was one of a family of Christian 
martyrs, and that he himself was massacred for the faith. In 
July, 1850, Pope Pius IX. gave the relics to Eev. Father Cauvin, 
who was then pastor of the Hoboken church. The church was 
torn down and a new one erected in 1890-1, which necessitated 
a new translation of the relics on August 2, 1891. A procession 
of one thousand children, wearing white dresses, typical of the 
saint's unsullied childhood, and red sashes, typical of the blood 
he is presumed to have shed for the faith, accompanied the relics 
to the new sanctuary. 

Quinquagesima. (Lat., "Fiftieth.") The first Sunday 
before Ash Wednesday, so named because it was fifty days 
before Lent. The two Sundays preceding Quinquagesima — i.e., 
the second and third Sundays before Lent — are respectively 
known as Sexagesima and Septuagesima Sundays, possibly 
because they were looked on as being in round numbers sixty 



830 CURIOSITIES OF 

and seventy days before Easter. That the custom of so naming 
them is ancient we know, for we find them mentioned in the 
writings of Gregorj^ the Great; but the practice of keeping 
them as a preparation for Lent has always been confined to the 
Western Church. 



Ramadan. The ninth lunar month in the Mohammedan 
calendar. It may be called the Mohammedan Lent. Every day 
from sunrise to sunset is kept as a strict fast. Not a morsel of 
food or a drop of drink is tolerated. Tobacco and snuff are for- 
bidden. But the day fasting is made up for by night feasting. 
The moment the sun has set, a carnival begins which lasts well 
on until sunrise. In the great cities the restaurants and cafes 
are lighted, and the streets are full of revellers making up for 
the austerities of the day. The wealthy keep open house. . But 
the mosques are open too, and are crowded night and day. On 
the 15th day of Eamadan the Sultan goes in grand procession 
from the Yildiz palace in Pera across the Bosporus to Stam- 
boul to kiss Mohammed's coat (see Coat of Mohammed). This 
is the one day of the year in which the Sultan appears in Stam- 
boul. If Eamadan be the Mohammedan Lent, Bairam (^. v.) is 
the Mohammedan Easter. This is the season which ends the 
great fast. 

" When the moon of Eamadan has set and that of Bairam has 
risen, all Constantinople puts on its new clothes and the people 
come out and rejoice over the day. There are bands of music 
everywhere through the streets. Calls are made among friends 
and neighbors. The boats on the Bosporus are decorated with 
flags, and everything and everybody goes wild with joy. The 
watching for the moon is a great occasion, and the Turk who 
brings the first news of its rising to the Cadi of Constantinople 
gets a reward often thousand piasters, or four hundred and fifty 
dollars. The competitors station themselves on the hills about 
Constantinople, and as soon as they see the thin band of light 
which marks the new moon's coming in the sky, they rush for 
the office of the judge, and the first one in gets the prize. The 
cadi is waiting for them, and he fixes the next morning as the 
beginning of Bairam." (Frank G. Carpenter : Lent among the 
Mahometans, in the Cosmopolitan, April, 1893.) 

Red- Letter Days. A term now extended to any gala occa- 
sion or memorable day in the life of an individual or a nation. 
But originally and specifically the term is an ecclesiastical one, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 831 

used to characterize the more important festivals and saints' 
days of the Church, which appear in red letters instead of black 
in the calendar. In ordinary cheap prayer-books both of the 
English and of the Eoman Church, where two colors are not used 
in the printing, these days are characterized by italics or Gothic 
capitals, and the black-letter days (q. v.) or minor festivals by 
lower-case Eoman type. The practical difference in the public 
worship of the English Church is that black-letter days have no 
collect, etc., as the others have. 

Relics. (Lat. reliquice, "remains.") In its Catholic use this 
word includes the bodies of saints and martyrs, or fragments of 
the same, or any objects with which in life the person was asso- 
ciated. 

The old Eomans and Greeks had their holy relics, — for in- 
stance, the egg of Leda. The Hindoos waged bloody wars over 
the monstrous supernatural tooth of Buddha. The Mohamme- 
dans preserve the standard, arms, clothes, beard, and two teeth 
of their Prophet. In the Catholic Church St. Helena was the 
first great relic-hunter. 

The Second Mcsean Council ordered that no church should be 
consecrated unless it enshrined some relics, and imputes a dis- 
regard for them to the opponents of images. So encouraged, 
relic-hunting became a favorite pastime, in which earth and 
heaven joined their forces. Numerous saints revealed the where- 
abouts of their bodies in dreams and visions, some of them being 
so eager in the cause that they pointed out more than one. 
Miraculous lights settled over the resting-places of other holy 
men. Indeed, at every critical moment relics were sure to be 
discovered. They often came down from heaven in answer to 
devout prayer. A woman at St.-Maurin, for instance, who had 
chosen St. John for her patron, importuned him daily for three 
years for some little bit of hislDody for which he had no further 
use. He turned a deaf ear until at last the woman got desperate 
and vowed that she would not touch food till her prayer was 
heard. She kept her vow for seven days, and was nearly at her 
last gasp, when she found on the altar the thumb of the saint. 
Three bishops wrapped this holy relic very reverently in linen, 
and three drops of blood fell from it, — one drop per bishop. 

When the Empress Constantine petitioned Pope Gregory I. to 
send her the head of St. Paul, he replied that it was not the 
custom at Eome to lay violent hands on the remains of the 
martyrs. He added that many persons who had presumed to 
handle the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul had been struck dead 
in consequence, and that he could send her only a cloth which 
had touched the apostle's body. Such cloths, he reminded her, 



832 CURIOSITIES OF 

possessed the same miraculous power as the relics themselves. 
The practice of removing relics, he said in conclusion, gave rise 
to fraud, as in the case of some G-reek monks, who, when de- 
tected in digging up dead bodies by night at Rome, had confessed 
to an intention of passing them off in Greece as relics of martyrs. 

At the time of the Crusades Europe was overflowed with 
relics. Whenever a town in the Holy Land was conquered the 
Crusaders looked first for relics, as paore precious than gold or 
gems. St. Louis made two unfortunate crusades, but he com- 
forted himself with the relics he brought home. Chief among 
these was the holy crown of thorns, one of the ornaments of 
the Imperial Chapel at Constantinople. The court of France 
advanced as far as Troyes, in Champagne, to meet with devotion 
this inestimable relic. It was borne in triumph through Paris 
b}- the king himself, barefoot, and in his shirt. Among the 
other treasures secured by the same simple-minded monarch were 
a portion of the true cross, part of the baby linen of the infant 
Jesus, and various other relics of the Passion. To house them 
all properly St. Louis built the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris, where 
many of them may still be seen. 

Among relics of a painfully grotesque character whose de- 
scription we meet with in mediaeval authorities may be reckoned 
a portion of the melted fat of St. Lawrence ; the bones of 
Moses; the sigh which St. Joseph heaved when he was splitting 
wood ; feathers from the wings of the archangels Gabriel and 
St. Michael; the thorn in the flesh which troubled St. Paul; a 
beam of the star which conducted the Wise Men from the East ; 
the perch whence the cock crew its reproach to Peter ; the bones 
of the ass on which the entry into Jerusalem was made ; the 
staff with which Moses parted the Hed Sea ; manna from the 
desert; and a piece of the rock from which Moses drew water. 

What has become of many of these relics and of the jewel- 
incrusted caskets, reliquaries, and shrines in which they were 
preserved ? It is certain that only a limited number have been 
preserved. The greater portion were swept away in the wars 
which at various epochs have devastated the face of Christendom. 
In England and Northern Europe very few survived the icono- 
clasticism of the Reformation. 

First in the estimation of the faithful come, of course, all per- 
sonal relics of Christ. Most of these were found by St. Helena 
{q. V.) during her famous pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Of the cross 
and other instruments associated with the Passion some details 
are given under the head of Cross, Invention of the. 

A small portion of Herod's staircase is at the Escorial, and the 
remainder is at Rome. (See Scala Santa.) The column at 
which the scourging took place is also at Rome, in the church 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 833 

of St. Praxede, with the exception of some fragments which 
are at Venice. The present whereabouts of the rope, whip, and 
sceptre is not quite clear. All we learn is that the ro})e was at 
Carlstein in 1515, that the whip was treasured at Constance, and 
that Soissons, Courtrai, and the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris held 
the sceptre for a long time. The ci-own of thorns, which was 
given to St. Louis by the Emperor of Constantinople, is now in 
Notre-Dame at Paris. Thorns have been taken from it, and are 
objects of veneration in many places. Of the purple vestments, 
some are in the church of Bucoleon at Constantinople, and 
others are at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. 

Of the actual person of Christ all that remains are some drops 
of the blood (see Blood, Precious) and a few hairs. The latter 
are dispersed among the churches at Corbie, Namur, and St. 
Denis. 

Other relics comprise, first, the clothes worn by Christ, the 
sandals, the tunics, the swaddling-clothes, the manger, etc. ; 
second, the relics of the Lord's Supper, such as the bread, the 
communion-cup, the cloth, the dish, the table, the basin for 
washing the feet, and the linteum. 

Fragments of the sandals are at Corbie, Treves, and Alber- 
stadt ; the swaddling-clothes are at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, 
Clermont, Courtrai, Namur, Toledo, Vizille ; the tunics are at 
Argenteuil, Treves (see Coat, Holy), and Aix-la-Chapelle, and 
there are also fragments of them at Corbie and Toledo ; and a 
portion of the manger is at St. Denis, though Eome claims to 
have it almost entire (see Presepio). The cup used at the mar- 
riage of Cana, known as the Sacro Cattino (q. v.), is at Genoa. 

Remedies, Virgen or Nuestra Senora de los. (Sp., "Vir- 
gin or Our Lady of Succor.") A famous image preserved in the 
little historic church of Los Eemedios on the hill of Totoltepec, 
about twenty miles from the city of Mexico. Being looked upon 
as a rival of the Virgin of Guadalupe (see Guadalupe) and more 
than suspected of Spanish leanings, she has become much dis- 
credited since Mexico achieved her independence. Indeed, she is 
even derisively spoken of as La Gachupina (" the little Spanish 
woman"). The image is a wooden doll a foot high, holding in its 
arms a tiny infant Jesus. Both faces are carved with a rough 
penknife. Two holes represent the eyes, and another the mouth. 
'•' No Indian idol," says Madame Calderon de la Barca, " could be 
much uglier. She has been a good deal scratched and destroyed 

in the lapse of ages. C n observed that he was astonished 

they had not tried to restore her a little. To this the padre 
replied that the attempt had been made by several artists, each 
one of whom had sickened and died." (Letters.) 

53 



834 CURIOSITIES OF 

Tradition asserts that this image was brought to Mexico by 
Juan Yillafuerte, a soldier of Cortez's army. Now, the hill of 
Totoltepec, at the coming of the Spaniards, was an Otomi 
stronghold. On its rugged, lava-seamed heights was a great 
building, half temple, half fortress, which was dedicated to the 
worship of Otomcapulco, who is more generally known by his 
Aztec name of Tlaloctlamacazqui, the god of the rains, and his 
royal sister, Chalchiuhtliycue, the spirit of the waters. The 
former held dominion over the water that came from the heavens, 
and the latter ruled the running streams and the tides of the sea. 
In pre-Spanish times a great feast lasting a whole month was 
held in honor of these two gods, at which hundreds of human 
sacrifices were offered. This worship extended to the sea-coast 
on both sides of the mountains. 

Cortez persuaded Montezuma to allow him to set up an altar 
in the city of Mexico, and there Yillafuerte' s image was installed. 
There it remained until the Spaniards were driven from the city 
on the night of June 30, 1520 (see Noche Triste). Throughout 
all the horrors of that night, so the legend says, the good Yilla- 
fuerte carried the precious image in his bosom, and throughout 
the subsequent attacks upon the fortress of Totoltepec, during 
which he was sorely wounded. At last, finding himself about 
to die, he hid the image under the great leaves of a maguey 
plant. 

Twenty years afterwards, Cequahutzin, a famous chief of the 
Otomi nation, who had lately become a Christian, happening to 
be out hunting upon the hill, saw a vision of the Yirgin, who, in 
her own person, directed him to search under the maguey for 
her image. This he did, and, having found it, he took it to his 
home ; but the same day it returned to its place under the 
maguey. Again he carried it to his house and set before it, in a 
gourd dish, the most tempting food that he possessed, but again 
the image fled to the hill. Once more he went for it and carried 
it back with him, and, to make sure of it this time, he locked it 
securely in a strong box, upon the top of which he made his bed 
for the night. But when he awoke in the morning the image had 
again fled to its place under the maguey plant. Cequahutzin 
went that very day to the holy fathers of San Gabriel in Tacuba 
and told them what had happened. They divined that the Yirgin 
desired a temple to be erected to her service upon the hill of 
Totoltepec. Accordingly a little church was immediately built 
upon the spot where the image had been discovered, and some 
thirty -five years later the present building was completed (1575). 

In time the shrine of Totoltepec became the richest and most 
famous throughout the land. Gifts of immense value were 
showered upon the image. Her jewels and ornaments alone 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 835 

were valued at one million dollars. The railings that enclosed 
the main altar were carved from massive bars of silver. Before 
the altar itself stood a massive maguey plant in pure silver. A 
treasurer was appointed to take charge of her jewels, a camarista 
to superintend her rich wardrobe. In seasons of drought she 
was brought in from her mountain dwelling and carried in pro- 
cession through the streets of Mexico. The viceroy himself, on 
foot, used to lead the holy train. A dignitary of high rank 
drove the carriage in which she was seated. She visited the 
principal convents in succession, the nuns bowing in humble 
adoration as she passed. 

It happened that in the revolution of 1810 the patriot Hidalgo 
took as his standard an image of the Yirgin of Gruadalupe. The 
Spanish sympathizers answered by appealing to the patronage 
of the Virgin of Los Eemedios, and her image was conducted to 
Mexico, dressed as a Spanish general. On the triumph of the 
revolutionists, she was stripped of her military dress, her church 
was despoiled of its treasures, and her passport was signed, with 
an order for her to leave the republic. But calmer counsels pre- 
vailed. She was allowed to remain, was eventually restored to 
her honors, and still retains her treasurer, a small portion of her 
treasures, and a semi-suspicious hold upon the reverence of the 
Mexicans. 

But, though the lustre of the glory of Our Lady of Succor is 
dimmed, she has still many strong admirers, chief among whom 
are the remnants of the old imperialist party ; and every good 
Catholic in Mexico is willing to admit her wonderful power over 
the rivers and the rain, which she usurped from the ancient 
Aztec gods of the floods and the storms. And so she still con- 
tinues to inhabit the bare, damp-stained, smoke-colored walls of 
the ancient, half-ruined sanctuary on the hill of Totoltepec. 

A correspondent of the New, York Sun who ^dates his letter 
Mexico, June 29, 1896, writes as follows: "A special service to 
pray for rain at the shrine of Nuestra Senora de los Eemedios 
has been followed by a plenteous downpour, and so the fame of 
the shrine is proportionately greater. Yesterday the sun rose 
over the Yalley of Mexico with a clear, keen, steady brightness 
that caused the old people to shake their heads. It was a day 
that made the weather-prophets hide themselves in despair; a 
dawning that once more painted on the steel-blue sky the words 
of which all the land had weeks ago grown weary, — ' No rain.' 
Everywhere the pulque-fields and the corn-lands lay cracked and 
seamed with the long, steady, scorching heat of the tropical 
sun. 

" But all this time a curious ceremony was going on in the 
little old historic church of Los Eemedios. Thousands of people 



836 CURIOSITIES OF 

from all over the republic sent up their prayers to the little 
image of Our Lady of Succor that she would remember them as 
she had done in the past and send them the rain to gladden their 
parched fields ; for such a drought as there has been upon the 
land for the past eight months has not been felt in Mexico for 
many years. Until yesterday hundreds of petitions and pilgrim- 
ages had been made to Our Lady of Succor without avail. 
Finally the authorities of the Church gave notice that there 
would be a special service at the shrine. The service commenced 
at ten a.m. with the celebration of low mass by Canon Pedro de 
Verona Gutierrez. This was followed by solemn high mass, 
which was sung by Father Flores of San Miguel. 

" At the conclusion of the mass the little image of Our Lady 
of Succor was carried around the churchyard (for the laws do 
not permit any public procession of a religious character outside 
the walls of the churchyard). The 'Little Lady' stood erect 
under a blue and silver canop}^, from which she looked serenely 
forth upon a long procession of the faithful, each carrying a 
lighted taper. 

" When the procession was over, the sun looked down as piti- 
lessly into the court-yard of the church as it had continued to 
do for weeks past, but during the evening rain fell in torrents, 
and the faith of the believers is proportionately strengthened." 

Rhyne Toll. An annual tax collected between October 30 
and November 7 in the ])arish of Chetwode, a small village about 
five miles from Buckingham, England, by the lord of the manor, 
who ever since Saxon times has been the head of the Chet- 
wode family. Tradition asserts that in ancient times the parish 
formed part of a forest which was infested by a destructive wild 
boar. The inhabitants were never safe from his attacks, and 
strangers who heard of his ferocity were afraid to visit or pass 
through the district, so that trafiic and friendly intercourse were 
seriously impeded, as well as much injury done to property-, by 
this savage monster. The lord of Chetwode, bent on ridding his 
neighborhood of this pest, sallied forth into the forest, and, as 
the old song has it, — 

Then he blowed a blast full north, south, east, and west — 

Wind well thy horn, good hunter ; 
And the wild boar then heard him full in his den, 

As he was a jovial hunter. 

Then he made the best of his speed unto him — 

Wind well thy horn, good hunter ; 
Swift flew the boar, with his tusks smeared with gore, 

To Sir Rjalas, the jovial hunter. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 837 

Then the wild boar, being so stout and so strong — 

Wind well thy horn, good hunter; 
Thrashed down the trees as he ramped him along 

To Sir Eyalas, the jovial hunter. 

Then they fought four hours in a long summer day — 

Wind well thy horn, good hunter ; 
Till the wild boar fain would have got him away 

From Sir Eyalas, the jovial hunter. 

Then Sir Ryalas he drew his broadsword with might — 

Wind we'll thy horn, good hunter ; 
And he fairly cut the boar's head off quite, 

For he was a jovial hunter. 

Matters being thus settled, the neighborhood rang with the 
praises of the gallant deed of the lord of Chetwode, and the 
news thereof soon reached the ears of the king, who " liked him 
so well of the achievement" that he forthwith made the knight 
tenant in capite, and constituted his manor paramount of all the 
manors within the limits and extent of the royal forest of Eook- 
woode. Moreover, he granted to him, and to his heirs forever, 
among other immunities and privileges, the full right and power 
to levy every year the " Ehyne Toll" on all cattle found within 
the district between the 30th of October and the 7th of Novem- 
ber. The commencement of the toll, which is proclaimed with 
much ceremony, is thus described in an old document of Queen 
Elizabeth's reign: 

" In the beginning of the said drift of the common, or rhyne, 
first at their going forth, they shall blow a welke-shell, or home, 
immediately after the sun rising at the Mansion-House of the 
manor of Chetwode, and then, in their going about, they shall 
blow their home the second time in the field between Newton 
Purcell and Barton Hartshorn, in the said county of Bucks, and 
also shall blow their home a third time at a place near the town 
of Finmere. in the county of Oxford, and they shall blow their 
home the fourth time at a certain stone in the market of the 
town of Buckingham, and there to give the poor sixpence ; and 
so, going forward in this manner about the said drift, shall blow 
the home at several bridges called Thornborough Bridge, King's 
Bridge, and Bridge Mill, And they also shall blow their home 
at the Pound Grate, called the Lord's Pound, in the parish of 
Chetwode. . . . And also (the lord of Chetwode) has always 
been used by his officers and servants to drive away all foreign 
cattle that shall be found within the said parishes, fields, &c., to 
impound the same in any pound of the said towns, and to take 
for every one of the said foreign beasts twopence for the mouth, 
and one penny for a foot for every one of the said beasts," All 



838 CURIOSITIES OF 

cattle thus impounded at other places were to be removed to the 
pound at Chetwode, and if not claimed and the toll paid within 
three days, " then the next day following after the rising of the 
sun, the bailiff or officers of the lord for the time being shall 
blow their home three times at the gate of the said pound, and 
make proclamation that, if any persons lack any cattle that shall 
be in the same pound, let them come and shew the marks of the 
same cattle so claimed by them, and they shall have them, pay- 
ing unto the lord his money in the manner and form before- 
mentioned, otherwise the said cattle that shall so remain shall 
be the lord's as strays." This toll was formerly so rigidly en- 
forced that if the owner of cattle so impounded made his claim 
immediately after the proclamation was over, he was refused 
them, except he paid their full market price. 

Though the custom is still regularly observed, it has under- 
gone some changes since the date of the above document. The 
toll now begins at nine in the morning instead of at sunrise, and 
the horn is first sounded on the church-hill at Buckingham, and 
gingerbread and beer are distributed among the assembled l3oys, 
the girls being excluded. The officer then proceeds to another 
part of the liberty on the border of Oxfordshire, and there, after 
blowing his horn as before, again distributes gingerbread and 
beer among the assembled boys. The toll is then proclaimed as 
begun, and collectors are stationed at different parts to enforce 
it, at the rate of two shillings a score upon all cattle and swine 
passing on any road within the liberty, until twelve o'clock at 
night on the 7th of November, when the " Ehyne" closes. 

The occupiers of land within the liberty have long been ac- 
customed to compound for the toll by an annual payment of one 
shilling. The toll has sometimes been refused, but has always 
been recovered with the attendant expenses. It realized about 
twenty pounds a year before the opening of the Buckingham- 
shire Eailway ; but now, owing to Welsh and Irish cattle being 
sent by trains, it does not amount to above four pounds, and is 
let by the present lord of the manor for only one pound five 
shillings a year. (Chambers : Book of Days, vol. ii. p. 516.) 

Roche, St. (Fr. Eoch or Bo que ; It. Bocco), patron of pris- 
oners and the sick, especially the plague-stricken. In England 
his festival on August 16 used to be celebrated as a general har- 
vest home, with dances in the churchyard in the evening, and was 
known as the great harvest festival. (Fosbrooke : Dictionary 
of Antiquities.) 

Born about 1280, at Montpellier, France, of a noble family, 
left an orphan at twenty with a vast patrimony, St. Roche dis- 
tributed the latter among the poor and started on a pilgrimage 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 839 

to Eome. There and in other Italian cities he devoted himself 
to tending the sick in the hospitals, for a great plague was then 
raging. At Piacenza he took the infection himself. He crawled 
into a wood without the city. His little dog, who had accompa- 
nied him, tenderly nursed him through the illness that followed. 
Every day the dog went back to the city and returned in the 
evening with a loaf of bread in his mouth. The legend re- 
lates that an angel appeared and dressed his wounds, but others 
explain this by saying that it was a kind-hearted man named 
Gothard, who, not knowing who he was, took compassion on 
him, proving, as it were, his " good angel." When he had re- 
covered sufficiently, St. Eoche turned his steps towards his old 
home, but when he arrived he was so changed by suffering that, 
not recognizing him, the officers arrested him as a possible spy, 
and threw him into prison. Even his own uncle, Mho was the 
judge, did not know him, and the saint, believing that it was 
the will of God, did not reveal himself, but quietly endured the 
hardships of confinement for five years. 

At the expiration of that time, the jailer entering the cell one 
morning was dazzled by a brilliant light which filled the whole 
room. The prisoner was dead, and beside him lay a paper which 
contained his name and these words : " Ceux qui sont frappez 
de peste, et iraploreront la faveur de Sainct Eoche, seront gueris." 
{Les Fleurs des Vies des Saints.) When his uncle and the people 
learned who he was, they were filled with grief and remorse ; 
and he was buried amidst the tears and prayers of the whole 
city. 

Kearly a century passed after this event (which is generally 
believed to have occurred about 1327) before the memory of St. 
Eoche was revived outside of his native city. But at the time 
of the great Church Council held in 1414 at Constance (the same 
that condemned Huss) the plague broke out, and the clergy and 
laity were in great consternation, when a young German monk, 
who had heard of St. Eoche in France, proposed that his aid 
should be invoked on behalf of the plague-stricken people. 
Acting upon this advice, the Council ordered that the effigy of 
that saint should be carried in procession through the streets ; 
and no sooner was this done, accompanied by prayers and 
litanies, than the plague suddenly ceased. 

The cupidity of the Venetians was now aroused. Owing to 
their extensive commercial relations with the East, they w^ere 
peculiarly exposed to infection. Who could need more than 
they the pestilence-defying bones at Montpellier? In 1485 was 
formed an alliance of holy buccaneers. Under pretence of per- 
forming a pilgrimage, they landed at Montpellier, stole the relics, 
and carried them away to Venice, where the Doge received them 



840 CURIOSITIES OF 

in state. The splendid church of San Eocco was built for their 
reception under the auspices of a community which had already 
been formed for the purpose of caring for those ill with infec- 
tious disease. This community still exists, under the title of the 
Brotherhood of San Eocco (a society analogous to that of the 
Misericordia in Florence), wherein many of the nobility and 
gentry of Yenice enroll themselves for shorter or longer periods 
as a penance for sin or as a step in the quest for the higher life. 

It may be mentioned, however, that Aries contains a rival 
body of St. Eoche. Certain relics of the saint are also shown at 
Eorae, Antwerp, and other places. 

In art St. Eoche is usually represented as a man in the prime 
of life, dressed as a pilgrim, with a cockle-shell in his hat and a 
wallet at his side. In one hand he holds a staff, in the other he 
lifts his robe to show the plague-spot, and his dog stands near. 
The events of his life have been depicted by some of the most 
celebrated artists of Italy and Germany, Carracci, Guido, Tinto- 
retto, Bassano, and Eubens, the most famous work being the 
altar-piece in the church at Alost, which was completed in eight 
days, and for which Eubens received eight hundred florins from 
the Brotherhood of St. Eoche. 

Rogation Days. The Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday 
before Ascension Thursday, so called because in the Eoman 
Church the Litany of the Saints is chanted in the procession 
which takes place on each of the three days. Eogatio (from 
rogare, " to pray") is the Latin equivalent for the Greek word 
Xiraveia, " litany." These litanies are called lesser by comparison 
with the more ancient and solemn chanting of the litany on St. 
Mark's Day. 

Litanies sprang from the early Christian processions to mar- 
tyrs' tombs, which gradually developed in a general custom of 
supplications for the appeasing of God's wrath and the averting 
of public evils. These were called Litanies by the Greek Church 
and Eogations by the Latin. St. Chrysostom is said to have in- 
troduced the custom of singing litanies in procession at Constan- 
tinople. The usage was brouirbt into more regular and definite 
shape by Mamertus, Bishop of Yienne, in Gaul, about the middle 
of the fifth century, when the province suffered from earthquake 
and other troubles. In 511 the First Council of Orleans ap- 
pointed the Eogation Days before the Ascension to be observed 
with fasting and solemn processions, and directed that all slaves 
should be exempted from work, that they might be able to attend 
the public services on those three days. Gregory the Great, a cen- 
tury later, collected and arranged the various litanies in a com- 
mon form very much as they are now used in the Latin Church, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 841 

under the name of " Litanies of the Saints," which are still sung 
on the Eogation days, either in church, or, in many Catholic 
countries, in procession about the streets. But Gregory only 
enjoined their use on St. Mark's Day, and left it to Leo III. 
(who died in 816) to introduce the Eogation days at Eome. 
Leo omitted the obligation of fasting. It was in the time of Pope 
G-regory, however, that St. Augustine introduced the custom into 
the English Church. He had learned the usage on bis way 
through Gaul, and availed himself in this matter of Gregory's 
wise advice to adopt for the newly-formed Church such liturgical 
observances prevalent elsewhere as he might find most suitable, 
even though not used at Eome. It was, in fact, to the chant 
of the rogations or litanies that Augustine and his monks 
came in procession, with silver cross and banner borne before 
them, to their first meeting with Ethelbert in the Isle of Thanet. 
And in the same order and with the same solemn chant — bor- 
rowed from the use of the Church of Lyons — they soon after- 
wards made their entry into Canterbury on one of the Eogation 
days in the Ascension week of 597. It was natural, therefore, 
that when Augustine was organizing the Church he had founded 
he should include in its ritual these Gallic " Eogations." Hence 
we find the Council of Clovesho in 747 enjoining the Litany and 
the processions on Eogation days to be kept up in England, 
" according to the way of our fathers," besides directing the 
Litany to be used on St. Mark's Day for the future as at Eome. 
The season continued to be observed with fasting, solemn pro- 
cessions, and litanies until the Eeformation, and perhaps in some 
places still later. The Eogation Fast is still prescribed in the 
Eubrics of the Eeformed EngHsh Prayer Book. 

Gradually the perambulations deteriorated. First the minister 
ceased to make the tour. Then the beadle and churchwarden 
failed to attend. Finally the constable was left to lead the pro- 
cessions. Thus they took on an entirely secular aspect, which 
they have retained even in the parishes which have revived the 
old custom or never quite relinquished it. In that part of Lon- 
don called the City the bounds of every parish are still beaten 
with long staves by a motley crowd of old and young, generally 
under the leadership of a policeman. (See Bounds, Beating of 

THE.) 

Romain, St., patron of Eouen, in France. He is commemo- 
rated on October 23, the anniversary of his death in 639. He 
is styled the Apostle to Normandy, because he established Chris- 
tianity in that province, becoming Bishop of Eouen. Among 
the marvels related of him was that of commanding the waters 
of the river Seine to recede when an inundation threatened the 



842 CURIOSITIES OF 

city. No sooner had they obeyed than a dragon rose from the 
slime, which the good bishop with the aid of a murderer suc- 
ceeded in overcoming. Hence it was that until the Eevolution 
the chapter of Eouen on the annual recurrence of the saint's 
day possessed the privilege of pardoning a criminal condemned 
to death. 

Romuald, St. (956-1027), founder of the monastery of 
Camaldoli, about thirty-six miles from Florence, Italy. He died 
June 19, but February 7, the day of his translation, was ordered 
by Clement YIII. to be kept in his honor. His most famous act 
was to force the Emperor Otho III. to perform barefoot a pil- 
grimage from Eome to Mount Gargano, as a public penance for 
having treacherously slain Crescentius, governor of Tivoli, whom 
he had lured away from sanctuary in the castle of St. Angelo in 
Eome under promise of indemnity. Southey has a humorous 
poem upon one of the legends of this saint. Having as a hermit 
acquired a great reputation for sanctity, the country-folks in the 
neighborhood, unwilling to run the risk of having so eminent a 
saint buried among strangers, determined to strangle him one 
night. But the saint got wind of the project, and, being unam- 
bitious of so much worldly honor, quietly stole away from the 
place. 

St. Eomuald was buried in his own monastery of Yal di Castro. 
On February 7, 1481, his relics were translated to the church 
of St. Blaise in the town of Fabri, where they remain to this 
day. 

In art he is represented as holding his finger to his lips in 
token of silence, and often with a ladder by his side. The latter 
is in reference to a dream wherein he saw a ladder set up between 
heaven and earth, which his monks ascended clad in white 
habits. Hence he ordered that they should always wear white 
in lieu of the gray originally indicated. 

Roncesvalles, Our Lady of. (Sp. Nuestra Senora de Bon- 
cesvalles ; Fr. JSfotre-Dame de Boncevaux.') A miraculous image 
of the Virgin which is preserved at Eoncesvalles, or Eoncevaux, 
a village on the borders of Spain and France famous for the 
legendary achievements of Eoland. The ruined chapel in which 
it is kept is said to have been founded by Charlemagne, and 
among its other relics is the Bible on which the ancient kings 
of Navarre took the oath of allegiance. 

The shriving of penitent pilgrims at this chapel is an annual 
ceremony performed with much curious detail. The pilgrims 
come from the neighboring valleys, generally on the Spanish 
side of the Pyrenees. They arrive about dawn. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



843 i 




Their bodies are covered with a black blouse drawn tight at 
the waist with a cord, and their heads with a sombre cowl. 
On their shoulders they carry a 
heavy cross, formed of two weighty 
branches nailed together, supposed 
to resemble the cross which Christ 
bore to Calvary. They advance 
slowly, preceded by the mayors of 
their commune, attired in a long 
municipal robe. When they have 
reached the monastery, some of the 
pilgrims have travelled, crosses on 
back, ten, twenty, and even thirty 
miles. 

After half an hour's rest they form 
ranks again in two files, between 
which walk the clergy, with the 
wives, sisters, or mothers of the 
penitents. They pass before the 
tomb which is fabled to contain the 
remains of Eoland's companions, en- 
ter the chapel, and there hear mass, 
confess, and take communion. Then 
to breakfast at the neighboring inn, 

after which the line reforms, and the pilgrims, shouldering their 
crosses once more, march home ten, twenty, or thirty miles 
across the Pyrenees. 

Rosa di Lima, St., the only canonized female saint of the 
New World. Her festival is on August 30. She was born at 
Lima, Peru, in 1586. From her infancy she gave great evidence 
of piety, and began mortifying herself at a very early age. She 
destroyed her beautiful comple^xion with quicklime in order to 
disenchant her lovers. She supported herself and her aged 
parents by toiling in a garden, and by working at night with her 
needle. She died August 24, 1617, and was entombed at Lima. 
She was canonized by Clement X. in 1671. It is related that 
this Pope at first refused to canonize her, but a shower of roses 
fell all about him and continued until he felt assured of her 
sanctity. 

Rosalia, St., patron of Palermo, in Sicily, which was her 
birthplace. Her feast is celebrated on September 4, the anni- 
versary of the translation of her body. Of noble parentage, she 
forsook all worldly vanities in her youth and made herself an 
abode in a cave on Monte Pelegrino, three miles from Palermo. 



Pilgrim of Roncesvaux. 



844 CURIOSITIES OF 

Here she died in 1160. In 1625, the jubilee year of Pope Urban 
yill., a body supposed to be hers was found buried in a grot 
under the mountain, and was translated to the metropolitan 
church of Palermo, which was dedicated to her. A pestilence 
raging in that year ceased at once. It used to be the annual 
custom on her feast-day for the priests to take the relics in 
solemn procession around Monte Pelegrino. It must be added 
that Dean Buckland positively identified the remains as those 
of an unusually large and venerable he-goat. Nevertheless St. 
Michael's Church in Brooklyn, New York, prides itself on the 
possession of five fragments of her " forearm," which were 
brought over as a gift from the Cardinal of Palermo in 1893. 
They are encased in a small silver box of oval shape. 

Roses, Tribute of. (Fr. BailUe des Hoses.) A graceful cere- 
mony which existed in France up to the end of the sixteenth 
century and consisted of a tribute of roses from the peers of 
France to parliament, and was rendered in the months of April, 
May, and June on a day when the sitting was held in the great 
hall. The peer whose turn it was to pay the tribute had to see 
that on the appointed day all the rooms of the palace were 
strewed with roses, flowers, and sweet herbs : before the sitting 
commenced he was bound to enter every chamber with a large 
bowl of silver borne before him containing as many crowns of 
roses and bouquets as there were members of parliament and 
ofiicers attached to its service ; and when the roses had been dis- 
tributed to the various claimants of the homage and the audience 
was ended, he gave a great feast to the presidents, councillors, 
clerks, and ushers of the court. The origin of this custom is 
quite unknown. It not only existed at the parliament of Paris, 
but was maintained at all the other parliaments of the kingdom, 
especially that of Toulouse ; and the tribute was obligatory on 
the children of the king, princes of the blood, dukes, cardinals, 
and other peers. There is said to have been an edict of Henry 
III. relating to it. 

Rosh Hashanah. The Jewish New Year, being the first day 
of the secular year. The Jewish calendar really has two New 
Year's Days. One, Eosh Hashanah, is held by tradition to be 
the anniversary of the day on which God created the earth. It 
falls in either September or October of the Christian calendar, 
being reckoned by the new moon of the sevetith month, Tisri. 
It ushers in the civil year. Abib (see Passover) is the first 
month in the religious year. Abib, or Nisan, corresponds with 
parts of March and April, the year dating from the moon after 
the vernal equinox. The prophets speak of the sacred year, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 845 

while those in secular employments reckon by the civil. The 
number of months is the same as in the Christian calendar, but 
they are all lunar, and the discrepancies are remedied by the 
introduction of a thirteenth intercalary month every third year. 

The celebration of Eosh Hashanah was established by Mosaic 
precept. In the book of Leviticus, twenty-third chapter, twenty- 
fourth and twenty-lifth verses of the English version, it is written, 
" Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, 
in the first day of the month, shall ye have a Sabbath, a memorial 
of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. Ye shall do no 
servile work therein : but ye shall offer an offering made by fire 
unto the Lord." 

Business is generally suspended in Hebrew commercial circles 
during the New Year's celebration, and the Jewish temples and 
synagogues are thronged with worshippers. Among the ortho- 
dox Hebrews the festival lasts for two days, but the Eeformed 
Jews confine the celebration to one day. 

Like all the other festivals in the Jewish calendar, Eosh Hasha- 
nah lasts from sunset to sunset. As the succession of the priest- 
hood has been lost, sacrifice can be offered no longer, and the Bibli- 
cal decree ordering an offering cannot be obeyed. The trumpets, 
however, remain. These with the more conservative synagogues 
are the shofars or rams' horns of traditional antiquity. The 
Eeformed Jews substitute brass instruments. Experts are 
employed for the express purpose of producing the inhar- 
monious notes that serve to arouse the worshippers to a full 
sense of their religious duties to God and their fellow-men. 
There are three or four distinct blasts, one of which is quite pro- 
longed, as if the blower was bound to expend every particle of 
breath in his body, another is short and tremulous, and a third 
is broken or disconnected. The latter has been defined as a 
reminder of the many broken vows and religious precepts. 
These various blasts are repeated at frequent intervals during 
the day, and are always succeeded by short melodies, some of 
which are sung with great zest by the members of the con- 
gregation. 

On the New Year two scrolls of the law or five books of 
Moses are taken from the ark or sanctuary and borne amid 
impressive ceremonies to the reading-desk, where one is unrolled 
and sections read to six members of the congregation who are 
" called up" to the reading desk. From the second scroll a single 
section is read to a single member. The passages read from both 
scrolls are appropriate to the day. The reading-desk and the ark 
are on New Year's Day covered with a rich white material 
trimmed with silver and gold fringe, and present a very fine 
appearance. 



846 CURIOSITIES OF 

With the close of the synagogue and the return of the wor- 
shippers to their homes they refresh themselves and exchange 
visits of greeting, after the style of the Christian New Year. 
The rest of the day is given up to good cheer. 

The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur, q. v.) falls ten days 
after New Year, and the intervening period is known as the 
penitential days. During this period strict Jews abstain from 
all frivolity or pleasure, for again tradition says that the judg- 
ment which was rendered by the Almighty on the New Year is 
not finished until the expiration of the Day of Atonement, when 
the decision is sealed and irrevocable. Eabbis throughout the( 
Talmud are very careful to impress upon the minds of their dis- ) 
ciples that expiation for sins is practicable between man and ( 
God, but between man and man there must be absolute repara- • 
tion. 

- It is believed that on Eosh Hashanah three books are opened. 
One is for the righteous, who are immediately inscribed for 
life ; one for the wicked, who are instantly inscribed for death ; 
and one for the nondescript, who are left on probation. If the 
latter repent during the ten penitential days, their names are 
written in the book of life ; if not, in that of death. As the 
Day of Judgment Eosh Hashanah is alternatively known as 
Yom Hardin, and as the Day of Memorial as Yom Hazikkaron. 

Rosiere, Fete de la. A festival celebrated in many villages 
of France, notably in Salency, Nanterre, Surennes, and Sans- 
souci-des-Fleurettes, in which the essential feature is the crown- 
ing with white roses of a maiden who has preserved an unsullied 
reputation for virtue, and the presentation to her of a sum of 
money. A Sunday in late May or early June is usually chosen 
for the beginning of the festival, which in some localities lasts 
three days. 

The first rosiere is said to have been established at the be- 
ginning of the sixth century by St. Medard at Salency, of which 
pjlace he was seigneur. He charged his family estate with a 
sum of money to be given annually, together with a crown of 
white roses, to the most virtuous girl in the village. The first 
crown, by the unanimous vote of the village, is said to have gone 
to St. Medard's own sister, and in a picture above the altar in 
the chapel of St. Medard at Salency he is represented as crown- 
ing her. According to the terms of the original foundation, not 
only must the girl be irreproachable, but her ancestors for four 
generations before her must have stood well in the community. 
The seigneur of Salency had the right to choose the rosiere out 
of three girls, natives of the village, presented to him. When 
he had named her the parish was informed of it from the pulpit 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. ' 847 

on the following Sunday, and all who had any just cause or im- 
pediment to advance were bidden to do so. On the feast of St. 
Medard, June 8, at two o'clock in the afternoon, the rosiere, 
dressed in white, attended by twelve girls in white with blue 
sashes, and twelve boys, her father and mother and relations, 
went to the castle of Salency, where the procession was met by 
the seigneur or his bailiff, who conducted the procession to the 
church to vespers. 

Yespers over, clergy and people went in procession to the 
chapel of St. Medard. Here on the altar was the garland of 
roses, bound by a blue ribbon and ornamented in front with a 
silver ring. After blessing it the officiating priest placed it 
on the brows of the kneeling rosiere, and presented her with* 
twenty-five livres in presence of the seigneur and the village 
officials. Thus crowned, the rosiere with the rest returned to 
the parish church, where the Te Deum and a hymn to St. 
Medard were chanted, while outside the village youths fired 
salutes from guns and muskets. On finally emerging from the 
church the rosiere was led to the middle of the great street of 
Salency, where a table had been spread with six plates, six nap- 
kins, two knives, a salt-cellar, two quarts of claret, two glasses, 
a quart of fresh water, two loaves of bread, a cheese, and a dish 
of nuts. The seigneur, the mayor, the village priest, and two 
other dignitaries seated themselves at this frugal banquet with 
the heroine of the occasion. At the end thereof the maiden was 
presented with an arrow, two tennis-balls, and a whistle made 
of horn, upon which one of the dignitaries blew three times 
before presenting it. This beautiful ceremony, interrupted by 
the Eevolution, was re-established in 1812, and takes place now 
every year, but it has undergone certain modifications. The 
rosiere now receives three hundred francs, of which sum the 
municipal council gives half. j 

Meanwhile, during the eighteenth century, under the influence 
of Eousseau and his continuous appeals for a return to nature and 
simplicity, it had become fashionable for wealthy persons, whose 
acquaintance with virtue, mayhap, was rather one of hearsay 
than of personal experience, to establish rosiere prizes in their 
neighborhood and leave endowments to carry them on in the 
future. This was done at no less than fifty places throughout 
France. 

Nanterre, the birthplace of St. Genevieve, was one of the first. 
Whitsunday is here the appointed time. The rosiere is supposed 
to be the girl of the village who has most virtuously followed in 
the footsteps of the gentle maiden who was born there in 422, 
but she is generally the prettiest or the most popular girl, and is 
chosen from among the daughters of influential citizens. She is 



848 CURIOSITIES OF 

the queen of the three days' fete, which on the first day has a 
religious meaning ; on the second there is a mock civil marriage 
at the mairie, and on the third occurs the usual French fete, 
with roller-skates, travelling theatrical troupes, and a good pat- 
ronage for cafes and gingerbread-booths. 

If the rosiere live to be ninety, the name given to her at her 
baptism will be forgotten in favor of a graceful sobriquet which 
will ennoble her like a title, and men, women, and children will 
call her Madame la Eose. At first the parish priest and a quo- 
rum of village notables selected the rosieres, but it was contended 
that the organ of the confessional might know too much about 
parish virtues and the notables too little, so the matter is now in 
most places left to the municipal council. 

Every Saturday for June 28, 1873, copies from an amusing de- 
scription of the fete as witnessed at Sanssouci-des-Fleurettes : 

" A Sunday sun sheds its gilding over the village and brightens 
a double row of spectators packed close as corn, and forming a 
lane between the rosiere's house and the church. Three weeks 
have elapsed since the election, and animosities have had time to 
be smoothed away and melt. Like other sovereigns, this Queen 
of Eoses rules by accomplished fact ; so it is better to smile on 
her and seem proud of her, in order that strangers may not go 
away with the impression that tongues are forked and envious 
at Sanssouci-des-Fleurettes. Twelve o'clock is pealed musically 
from the church belfry ; the bell-pullers ring out the chimes ; the 
corps of communal firemen with brass helmets gleaming in the 
sun draw up as a guard of honor outside the rosiere's door, and 
the mayor, glorious in a white cravat, his sash, and a pair of 
new white cotton gloves, is descried coming in the distance with 
the garde champetre, in cocked hat and dirk, stalking in front, 
and the councillors all trooping behind. The band of the fire- 
men takes up its position, the fireman captain unsheathes his 
sword, and now the mayor, who has gone into the rosiere's 
house, emerges with her leaning on his hand ; the firemen pre- 
sent arms, the band struts off filling the air with martial music, 
the firemen wheel round and follow at the quick march ; then 
comes the rosiere in white, and with a veil of muslin ; the 
rosiere of last year walks by her side to the left, and nothing 
can exceed the enthusiasm of the on-lookers as they wave their 
hats or handkerchiefs, shower flowers on the road, and then 
rush off one on the top of another to try and jam themselves 
into the church. But the church porch is guarded by that trusty 
French beadle with glittering halberd, silver baldric, and taper- 
ing sword. The seats are all filled, and he would not let his own 
uncle slip in : so make way, messieurs et dames, for the firemen, 
who stream up the nave like a loud-sounding sea ; make way for 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 849 

the rosiere, who looks a little pale and nervous at the cheering; 
and step aside for M. le Maire, whose face is as a fine new brick 
just out of the kiln. The gracious lady — duchess, countess, or 
prefete — who is to bestow the crown is already in her seat near 
the altar rails ; the rosieres of j^receding years shine in a row 
in their special pew up the chancel ; the choristers, thurifers, 
and clergy are arrayed in gorgeous vestments, each at his proper 
post, and the beadle brings down his halberd with a noise of 
thunder on the stone flooring to bid the organist strike up a tri- 
umphal march. Then when this has been played out and died 
away under the vaulted roof, mass begins ; then ensues the ser- 
mon, from which let us draw the comforting moral that life is 
ever strewn with roses for the virtuous, or at least ought to be, 
which is the same thing. Then of one accord we all rise on our 
legs to see the rosiere led up to the altar and kneel to receive 
the crown of white roses together with the other incentives to 
continued purity. The rosiere is generally pretty ; and if the 
prating of evil tongues were listened to, we might go to bed 
with a notion that she is selected rather with a view to her per- 
sonal attractions than to other points, seeing how painful it 
would be for any village that respected itself to exhibit to those 
Parisians, who laugh at everything, a countenance of passing 
ugliness as the only specimen of local virtue. But let us take 
things gratefully as they come, without inquiring into causes. 
Enough for us that the rosiere is fair ; enough that the crown 
fits her well, and that the plates handed round among the con- 
gregation are soon filled with gold and silver sufficient to form a 
pleasant supplement to the thousand-franc note which the found- 
ress has bequeathed. Let us only hope that the watch and 
chain, the pair of ear-rings, and the bracelet— which are the 
kind though hazardous gifts of the municipality, the neighbor- 
ing gentry, and the lady patroness respectively — will not imbue 
the amiable young peasant girl with the belief that perseverance 
in virtue will help her to complete her stock of jewelry in after- 
life. Nor let her be persuaded, by and by, as she banquets with 
the authorities off roast chicken and champagne, which the rate- 
payers will afford, that mankind is always ready thus to honor 
with fermented beverages those who distinguish themselves by a 
display of modest qualities. If the rosiere's experience of life 
could only cease at the moment when the cloth is removed from 
the banqueting-board, this globe might indeed seem to her, as 
she floated upwards, the Elysium of the Just. Unfortunately 
to-morrow lies beyond, and who knows what shocks may await 
the trusting rosiere who has imagined that bands of music, eigh- 
teen-carat trinkets, and the vintage of Mme. Clicquot are insti- 
tutions kept alive by, and for the sole use of, the virtuous ?" 

54 



850 CURIOSITIES OF 

Something analogous to the French rosiere exists in the 
grimiest part of London. Early in the seventeenth century 
there flourished on the north bank of the Thames, among the 
sailors of Wapj^ing, Shadwell, and Poplar, a brewer named Henry 
Eaine, vvho founded in St. George's parish a school for boys and 
girls, fifty of each, with salaries for master and mistress. This 
done, and the school well started, he presently built and endowed 
an asj^lum for girls, to be taken out of the school, trained for 
four years in the duties of domestic service, and then put out 
into good places. The girls were not necessarily to be orphans, 
but they were to remain under some sort of surveillance for four 
years after leaving the asylum. If during that time they kept 
their good character for virtue, and found a lover also of good 
character, who must be a native of St. George's or an adjoining 
parish, and a churchman, they might at the age of twenty-two 
draw lots with other girls who fulfilled the same conditions for 
a marriage portion of one hundred pounds. The drawing of 
lots, the marriage ceremon}^, and the ceremony of presentation 
are all regulated by custom and order supposed to have been 
arranged by Eaine himself 

The lots are drawn in May. The marriage and presentation 
of the purse take place on the succeeding November 5, the for- 
mer in the church of St. George's and the latter in the vestry 
hall. A feature of the presentation is the singing of an anony- 
mous ode in honor of Henry Eaine, with this chorus : 

/Proclaim his worth, fulfil the plan 
.Of this unrivalled friend of man. 

Rough Music. The English equivalent of the French chari- 
vari (q. v.). In many of the southern counties of England it 
is or was until recently the fashion for the villagers to express 
a neighborly contempt for individual weaknesses or errors by 
gathering together for the infliction of what is known as rough 
music upon the ofl'ender. If a husband beat his wife or suffer 
himself to be henpecked, if either be unfaithful to the other, a 
mob of men, women, and children march to the culprit's house, 
each provided with some instrument for aural torture, a pan or 
a kettle, for example, drummed on by a huge key ; fire-shovels 
and tongs rattled together ; iron pot-lids used as cymbals ; a cow- 
horn or a marrow-bone used as a trumpet, or anything else that 
experience or imagination may suggest as combining the most 
noise with the least harmony. Above the din of the infernal 
concert rise shouts of " Shame ! Shame ! who beat his wife ? [or 
what not.] I say, John Doe, come out and show yourself!" 
After an hour or so spent in this amusement, the procession 
moves off through the village streets, proclaiming in all the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 851' 

most public places the name and the crime of the unwilling 
hero or heroine of the occasion. The piquancy of the accusa- 
tions is often greatly enhanced by some village humorist, who, 
grotesquely arrayed and with his face rouged or blacked, acts 
the part of herald. In the northern counties this herald is car- 
ried astride of a stang or pole. Hence the ceremony is there 
known as Biding the Stang (q. v.). 

Rousing Staff. A long stick or pole which was anciently 
used by beadles in churches to prod inattentive or dozing mem- 
bers of the congregation and bring them to a proper sense of 
reverence for their surroundings. At the palace of the Bishop 
of London at Fulham another sort of rousing stick is still used, 
in accordance with time-honored custom, for the purpose of 
knocking up certain of the servants at successive hours, begin- 
ning at about half-past five in the morning. This is a slender 
rod some fifteen feet in length, with which the palace lodge- 
keeper raps on the antique casements of the servants' bedrooms 
in the quadrangle within the massive wooden gates of the large 
western archway, and he continues the attention until the 
sleeper gives a more or less grateful answer. 
c In the earlier years of the nineteenth century, at Holy Trin- 
ity Church, Warrington, a masculine bit of womanhood named 
Betty Finch held the office of sluggard-waker, which was there 
known as the bobber. She is described as walking majestically 
along the aisles during the service, armed with a long stick like 
a fishing-rod, which had a " bob" fastened to the end of it, and 
when she caught any one speaking or talking she gave him a 
" nudge." Her son was engaged in the belfry, and often truth- 
fully sang, — 

My father's a clerk, 
My sister's a singer, 

My mother Is the bobber, 
And I am a ringer. 

/Andrews, in his " Curiosities of the Church," gives a descrip- 
tion of an official who used to be employed as sluggard-waker. 
He was a respectable-looking man, with a churchwarden air, who 
carried a long stout wand with a fork at the end of it. "At 
intervals he stepped stealthily up and down the naves and aisles 
of the church, and whenever he saw an individual whose senses 
were buried in oblivion, he touched him with his wand so effect- 
ually that the spell was broken, and in a moment he was recalled 
to all the realities of life. I watched as he mounted, with easy 
steps, into the galleries. At the end of one of them there sat in 
the front seat a young man who had very much the appearance 
of a farmer, with his mouth open and his eyes closed, a perfect 



852 CURIOSITIES OF 

picture of repose. The official marked him for his own, and, 
having fitted his fork to the nape of his neck, he gave him such 
a push that, had he not been used to such visitations, it would 
probably have produced an ejaculatory start highly inconvenient 
on such occasions. But no ; every one seemed to quietly acquiesce 
in the usage, and, whatever else they might be dreaming of, they 
certainly did not dream of the infringement upon the liberties 
of the subject, nor did they think of applying for the summons 
on account of the assault." 

Rumald or Rumbald, St., patron of Brackley and Bucking- 
ham, England. The regular festival of this saint is on November 
3, the anniversary of his death, but at Brackley it used to be 
celebrated on August 28 (probably the date of the translation of 
his bones), while in Kent Christmas Eve is known as Eumbald 
Night. Hasted in his " History of Kent," vol. iii. p. 380, men- 
tions a singular custom used of long time by the fishermen of 
Folkestone. They chose eight of their largest and best whitings 
out of every boat when they came home from the fishery, and sold 
them apart from the rest. Out of the money arising from them 
they made a feast every Christmas Eve which they called a 
Eumbald. The master of each boat provided this feast for his 
own company. This custom, now fallen into disuse, might 
anciently have been instituted in honor of St. Eumald, being 
originally designed as an offering to him for his protection during 
the fishery. 

This saint, whose legend is not accepted in its entirety by 
careful hagiologists, was an instance of rare precocity. Son of 
the King of Northumbria by a Christian woman, and born at 
Sutton in Northamptonshire, he came into the world crying 
three times, "I am a Christian !" He expressed a desire for 
immediate baptism, chose his own name and his godfather's, 
directed that a large hollow stone should be brought in as the 
font, immediately after the ceremony walked to a well near 
Brackley which still bears his name, there preached for three 
successive days, and then died. According to his own request, 
his body lay buried for one year in Sutton, for the second year in 
Brackley, and at the beginning of the third it was translated to 
Buckingham and deposited in a shrine in an aisle of the church 
which afterwards bore his name. Eichard Fowler, chancellor to 
Edward lY., undertook to rebuild this aisle, but died in 1477, 
before its completion, leaving the following directions in his will : 
" Item, I wolle that the aforesaid Isle [aisle] of St Eumwold, in 
the aforesaid church prebendal of Bucks, where my body and 
other of my friends lyen buried, the which isle is begonne of new 
to be made, be fully made and performed up perfitely in all 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 853 

things att my costs and charge; and in the same isle that there 
be made of new a toumbe or shrine for the said saint where the 
old is now standing, and that it be made curiously with marble 
in length and breadth as shall be thought by myn executors most 
convenient, consideration had to the rome, and upon the same 
tombe or shrine I will that there be sett a coffyn or a chest 
curiously wrought and gilte, as it appertaynith for to lay in the 
bones of the same saint, and this also to be doan in all things at 
my cost and charge." Hence it appears that in the fifteenth 
century the relics of this infant saint were already held in high 
veneration. They continued to be the object of pilgrimages till 
the middle of the sixteenth century. Foxe in his Martyrology 
tells of certain Lollards who having renounced their errors were 
required in expiation to walk to Buckingham and present an 
offering at the shrine of St. Eumald. There was also a famous 
image of the saint at Boxley, in Kent, small and hollow and 
apparently very light, yet only a chaste woman could move it. 
Fuller explains this paradox in a quaint passage. " The moving 
hereof," he says, "was made the condition of women's chastity. 
Such who paid the priest well might easily remove it, whilst 
others might tug at it to no purpose. For this was the con- 
trivance of the cheat, — that it was fastened with a pin of wood 
by an invisible stander behind. Now, when such offered to take 
it who had been bountiful to the priest before, they bare it away 
with ease, which was impossible for their hands to remove who 
had been close-fisted in their confessions. Thus it moved more 
laughter than devotion, and many chaste virgins and wives went 
away with blushing faces, leaving (without cause) the suspicion 
of their wantonness in the eyes of the beholders ; whilst others 
came off with more credit (because with more coin) though with 
less chastity." 

Rush-Bearing. An ancient religious ceremony which still 
has local survivals in England. Formerly the floors of churches 
and dwelling-places consisted of the hard dry earth, which was 
covered over with rushes to render it grateful to the feet. Even 
in the royal palaces, rushes and straw, sometimes mixed with 
sweet herbs, formed the sole carpeting. In the household roll of 
Edward II. is an entry of money paid to John de Carleford for 
going from York to Newcastle to procure straw for the king's 
chamber. Hentzner in his " Itinerary" says of Queen Eliza- 
beth's presence-chamber at Greenwich, " the floor, after the 
English fashion, was strewed with hay," meaning rushes. In a 
little book called " Wits, Fits, and Fancies" (1614) is the follow- 
ing anecdote: "When Henry III., King of Franco, demanded 
of Monsieur Dandelot what especial things he had noted in 



854 CURIOSITIES OF 

England during the time of his negotiation there, he answered 
that he had seen but three things remarkable, which were, that 
people did drinke in bootes, eate raw fish, and strewed all their 
best rooms with hay; meaning black jacks, oysters, and rushes." 
Yet the use of rushes on floors was not unknown in France, for 
Froissart in his account of the death of Gaston, Count de Foix, 
relates how the hero's chamber was strewn with rushes and 
green leaves, and the walls hung with boughs newly cut for per- 
fume and coolness, as the weather was marvellously hot. 

vErasmus, in a letter to Dr. Francis, physician to Cardinal 
Wolsey, complains that as the rushes were seldom thoroughly 
changed, and the habits of the inmates were not always very 
cleanly, the smell soon became anything but pleasant. fSe 
speaks of the lowest layer of rushes (the top only being l^e- 
newed) as remaining unchanged sometimes for twenty years, 
a receptacle for beer, grease, fragments of victuals, and other 
organic matters. To this filthiness he ascribes the frequent 
pestilences with which the people of England were afflicted^ He 
recommends the entire banishment of rushes and a better ven- 
tilation. 

In the churches it grew to be the custom to renew the 
rushes once a year, usually on the Saturday next after the feast 
of the patron saint. The parishioners came in procession to 
strew the floor with newly cut rushes. Long after carpets and 
matting had taken the place of rushes, the rush -bearing cere- 
mony continued. " In Westmoreland, Lancashire, and districts 
of Yorkshire," wrote the Eev. G. Miles Cooper so recently as 
1857, "there is still celebrated between hay-making and har- 
vest a village fete called the Rush-Bearing. Young women 
dressed in white, and carrying garlands of flowers and rushes, 
walk in procession to the parish church accompanied by a crowd 
of rustics with flags flying and music playing. There they 
suspend their floral chaplets on the chancel rails, and the day is 
concluded with a simple feast." {Sussex Archceological Collec- 
tions, vol. ix.) 

In Cheshire, at Runcorn and Warburton, fifty years ago, as 
we are told by a contributor to Notes and Queries, First Series, 
i. 356, the annual rush-bearing wake was carried on in grand 
style: "A large quantity of rushes — sometimes a cart-load — is 
collected, and, being bound on the cart, they are cut evenly at each 
end, and on Saturday evening a number of men sit on the top 
of the rushes, holding garlands of artificial flowers, tinsel, etc. 
The cart is drawn through the parish by three or four spirited 
horses, decked with ribbons, the collars being surrounded with 
small bells. It is attended by morris-dancers fantastically 
dressed; there are men in women's clothes, one of whom, with 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 855 

his face blackened, has a belt, with a large bell attached, round 
his waist, and carries a ladle to collect money from the spec- 
tators. The party stop and dance at the public house on their 
way to the parish church, where the rushes are deposited and 
the garlands are hung up, to remain till the next year." 
( G-rasmere, in the English Lake district, claims to be the only 
pTace where the custom of rush-bearing preserves an unbroken 
record from a remote antiquity to the present day. The pres- 
ervation of the ceremony during the middle of the nineteenth 
century was due. largely to the influence of the poet Words- 
worth, and more recently to the energy of the late vicar, Mr. 
Fletcher, and the liberality of a wealthy resident, one Dawson, 
of Allan Bank, Grasmere. The latter was an admirer of the 
old custom, and encouraged the children to keep up the pro- 
cession by presenting a reward to each of the youthful rush- 
bearers. 

Hone gives an interesting account of how rush-bearing was 
celebrated at Grasmere on July 21, 1827 : 

^The church door was open, and I discovered that the vil- 
lagers were strewing the floor with fresh rushes. During the 
whole of this day I observed the children busily employed in 
preparing garlands of such wild flowers as the beautiful valley 
produces for the evening procession, which commenced at nine 
p.M , in the following order. The children, chiefly girls, holding 
these garlands, paraded through the village, preceded by the 
Union Band (thanks to the great drum for this information). 
They then entered the church, when the three largest garlands 
were placed on the altar, and the remaining ones in various 
other parts of the place. In the procession I observed the 
Opium-Eater, Mr. Barber (an opulent gentleman residing in the 
neighborhood), Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth, Miss Wordsworth, 
and Miss Dora Wordsworth. Wordsworth is the chief supporter 
of these rustic ceremonies. THb procession over, the party ad- 
journed to the ball-room, a hayloft, at my worthy friend Mr. 
Bell's, where the country lads and lasses tripped it merrily and 
heavily. The dance was kept up till a quarter to twelve, when 
a livery servant entered and delivered the following verbal mes- 
sage to Billy (the fiddler) : ' Master's respects, and will thank 
you to lend him the fiddle-stick.' Billy took the hint : the Sab- 
bath was now at hand, and the pastor of the parish had adopted 
this gentle mode of apprising the assembled revellers that they 
ought to cease their revelry. The servant departed with the 
fiddle-stick, the chandelier was removed, and when the village 
clock struck twelve, not an individual was to be seen out of 
doors in the village." 
(TJp to 1841 the floor of the church remained unpaved and 



856 CURIOSITIES OF 

was yearly strewn with rushes. Pews and floors were intro- 
duced in that year, but the rush-bearing continued to be kept 
up with undiminished vigor. Until 1885 it took place on the 
Saturday nearest July 20. It is now celebrated on the Satur- 
day next after August 5, the festival of St. Oswald, to whom 
the church is dedicated. The children assemble with their gar- 
lands, which they arrange along the churchyard wall. At half- 
past six o'clock the procession is marshalled in the road in the 
following order : 

Banner of St. Oswald. 

Clergy and Choir in Surplices. 

Band. 

Queen, with Pages. 

Maids of Honor, bearing the Eush-Sheet. 

The Eush-Bearers. 

The queen and her court and the bearing of the rush-sheet, 
which were important features in the old festival, were revived 
in 1891. " Arranging the sheet," says Bamford, a Lancashire poet, 
" was exclusively the work of girls and women ; and in propor- 
tion as it was happily designed and finely put together was the 
praise or disparagement meted out by the people, — a point on 
which they were not a little sensitive. The sheet was a piece 
of white linen, generally a good bed-sheet, and on it were 
pretty rosettes and quaint compartments, and borderings of all 
colors and hues which either paper, tinsel, ribbons, or natural 
flowers could supply. In these compartments were arranged 
silver watches, trays, spoons, sugar-tongs, teapots, quart tankards, 
drinking-cups, and other fitting articles of ornament and value." 
The present sheet was spun in Grasmere by a young woman of 
the village. 

After the procession has been formed, the hymn for St. Os- 
wald is sung, and the band plays the " Eush-Bearing March" 
(said to have been played nearly a century ago), and the pro- 
cession perambulates the village, the bells ringing and the tower 
flag flying. On returning to the church the Eush-Bearers' 
Hymn is sung, and the garlands are arranged round the walls. 
Full choral evensong follows. The children afterwards receive 
gingerbread, and some wresthng-bouts engage the attention of 
the young men. The garlands are removed on the following 
Monday to a neighboring field, where the Maypole is set up and 
a regular gala held for the rush-bearers and all who choose to 
share it. The words of the Eush-Bearers' Hymn and that of 
St. Oswald have no great distinguishing merit, and two verses 
of the former may suffice : 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 857 

The Rush-Bearers^ Hymn. 

/Our fathers to the House of God, 
'- As yet a building rude, 
Bore offerings from the flowery sod. 
And fragrant rushes strewed. 

May we, their children, ne'er forget 

The pious lesson given. 
But honor still, together met, 

The Lord of Earth and Heaven. 

The rush-bearing with morris-dancing is still kept up at 
Whitworth, near Eoehdale, Warcop, Westmoreland, Haworth 
and Saddleworth, Yorkshire, and other places. (Ditchfield, p. 
134 et seq.) 

Sometimes churches are now strewn with grass or hay in lieu 
of rushes. Thus, the parish of Clee, in Lincolnshire, possesses an 
ancient privilege of cutting rushes from a piece of land called 
" Bescars" for the purpose of strewing the church on Trinity 
Sunday. A small quantity of grass is annually cut to preserve 
this right. (Edwards : Old English Customs, p. 217.) 

At Old Weston, in Huntingdonshire, a piece of greensward 
belongs by custom to the parish clerk for the time being, subject 
to the condition of the land being mown immediately before 
Weston feast, which occurs in July, and the cutting thereof 
being strewn on the church floor previous to divine service on 
the least Sunday. (Ibid., p. 220.) 

At Braunstone, Leicestershire, the parish church is strewn 
with hay on the Sunday after St. Peter's Day (June 29). On 
the Thursday previous the Holme Meadow is mown. On Satur- 
day the parish clerk fetches a small load of hay, which he must 
spread with his hands on the floor of the church. The portion 
of the meadow whence the hay is brought is called " The Clerk's 
Acre," and the rest of the hay belongs to him. (Ditchfield, p. 
138.) 



Sabbath or Saturday. The seventh day of the week. The 
Sabbath of the Jews begins at sunset on Friday. Its advent is 
noted by the matron of the household, who lights the two long 
tapers in candlesticks standing on the dining-room table. Then 
she and the children greet the head of the family with the salu- 
tation " Shabbath," or Good Sabbath. At the commencement 
of dinner, when the males appear with their hats on, the " Kid- 
dush," or sanctification, takes place. First a brief thanksgiving 



858 CURIOSITIES OF 

prayer is said, then the house father blesses a vessel of wine, 
and, after tasting it himself, passes it around as a loving-cup. A 
double loaf of bread, commemorative of the double portion of 
manna which fell on the sixth day in the wilderness, is cut 
into slices, salted, and offered to every one. Every child, in the 
order of seniority, is next blessed by both parents. Hats are 
then removed, and the meal commences. At its close the hats 
are again donned for the closing prayer in Hebrew. No cigars 
are smoked by the strictly orthodox, as no fire, not imperatively 
needed, may be kindled on the day of rest. All the Sabbath_ 
meals are prepared on Friday. The prohibition against kindling 
a fire is explained in this way. In their wanderings in the wil- 
derness the only method of the Israelites for kindling a fire was 
by rubbing two sticks together until a flame was produced. 
This involved considerable labor, and the commandment against 
it has been retained so strictly that a Jew is forbidden even to 
touch a fire when kindled, to lift a lighted candle, or to extin- 
guish a fire or a candle when lit. In other ways the strict Jews 
carry their Sabbath formalities to excess. A handkerchief loose 
in the pocket, a superfluous pin in the clothes, is looked upon as 
a burden unfit for the Sabbath. But if the handkerchief be 
pinned to the pocket, or tied round the waist like a girdle, there 
is then no harm, as it may be considered a part of the garments. 
No fruit may be gathered from the tree, though if they can get 
at it with their teeth they may bite off as much as they wish. 
They will not meddle with any tool, nor write, nor sign their 
names, on the Sabbath, nor ride, nor travel, nor play any musical 
instrument, nor bathe, nor tear or break anything, even a hair: 
hence a very strict Jew will not comb his hair on the Sabbath. 

The Sabbath closes at starlight on Saturday. Paterfamilias 
makes ready for the return of weekday duties by providing a 
wine-cup which he holds in his right hand, a spice-box, beautifully 
worked in silver filigree, in his left, and a wax taper consisting 
of several strands braided on the flat, which he places on the 
table in front of him. Some of the Kabbalists explain the wine- 
cup, spice-box, and taper as emblems of water, air, and fire. The 
two former symbolize the Sabbath, the latter the weekday. The 
family group themselves around the table as their head chants 
the Habdalah, or prayer of separation between the Sabbath and 
the secular week. Then his wife lights the taper as he pro- 
nounces a benediction, first over the wine-cup and next over 
the spice-box. He inhales the fragrance of the latter, and his 
example is followed by every one present. Another benediction 
follows, during which all raise their hands and look at the fin- 
gers, in recognition of the coming duty to devote them to secular 
work for six days. At the final benediction, Paterfamilias tastes 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 859 

the wine, applies a little to his eyes, saying, " The command- 
ment of the Lord is pnre, enlightening the eyes" (Psalm xix. 8), 
and spills a portion of the remainder into a dish. His wife now 
hands him the taper, which he extinguishes in the dish. The 
Sabbath is at an end. 

Sacrament of the Miracle, Festival of the Most Holy. 

(Fr. Fete du TresSaitit Sacreynent de Miracle.') The Grande 
Kermesse or chief holiday of Brussels. It is celebrated on the 
first Sunday after July 13, the anniversary of the translation of 
three consecrated wafers or hosts from St. Catherine's Church to 
St. Grudula, under the following circumstances, as legend states 
them. In the year 1370, sixteen hosts were stolen by the Jews 
from the tabernacle of St. Catherine and carried to their syna- 
gogue. On Good Friday they assembled and derisively stabbed 
the hosts with a penknife. Blood flowed. Shocked, but not 
converted, they destroyed the bleeding evidences of their sacri- 
lege and intrusted three of the hosts which had escaped un- 
scathed to a Jewess who was to carry them to their brethren 
in Cologne. Now, it happened that this woman was a secret 
convert to Christianity. She carried them to the priest of St. 
Catherine's chapel and told the whole story. The Jews were 
arrested, the guilty ones executed, and the remainder banished 
from Brussels. 

St. Catherine's was a chapel of St. Gudula's, so the clergy 
went in grand procession, followed by the reigning sovereigns, 
nobility, and dignitaries, to escort the consecrated wafers to St. 
Gudula's, where they have ever since been kept in a splendid 
monstrance. A number of royalties, from Charles Y. to Marie 
Antoinette, have helped to dec6^rate the chapel and the shrine. 
The latter sent her wedding necklace of, diamonds to be sus- 
pended around the monstrance. 

The synagogue where the outrage was committed was con- 
verted into a beautiful expiatory chapel, where a community of 
ladies, semi-religious, perpetually adore the Blessed Sacrament in 
the spot where it was profaned. Here for a week before the 
festival a retreat is always given. During the octave there are 
sermons by some famous preacher every day at St. Gudula's 
itself 

The grand procession leaves St. Gudula's after the high mass, 
and wends its way through the streets to military music. It is 
composed of soldiers, clerics, and laity, the most conspicuous 
features being children strewing flowers and priests swinging 
censers before the Tres-Saint Sacrcment de Miracle, which is 
borne under a magnificent canopy by the deacon and subdcacon 
of the mass, followed by the dean. Through the kneeling crowds 



860 CURIOSITIES OF 

they march until they reach the Grande Place, and there, on an 
altar ornamented with the national colors, the three hosts are 
exposed for adoration. 

" At that moment it is superb ; the military form the square, 
the beautifully dressed children kneel in the centre ; the clergy 
are ranged on the high flight of steps leading up to the altar ; 
incense is burning from huge urns ; the dean intones the Tantum 
Ergo, it is taken up by hundreds, and then the bells ring, the 
drums roll, the soldiers present arms, the dean raises the Tres- 
Saint Sacrement de Miracle, and gives the benediction to the 
Hotel de Yille, and in blessing that hall blesses the city." (Cath- 
olic World, July, 1892.) 

Sacramental Fast. The Thursday before the annual or 
half-yearly Communion Sunday — variously known as the Sacra- 
mental Fast, the Summer Occasion, and, among the profane, as 
all readers of Burns will recollect, the Holy Fair — was at the 
beginning of the Scotch Kirk observed as a strict fast. Fasting, 
however, in the ordinary sense of the word was eventually put 
aside as a relic of Popery, though the old name was retained. 
The day was kept throughout Scotland as a supplementary Sun- 
day by church services, closing of all public oflSces and shops, 
and an entire cessation of all secular business. And this was 
not only an ecclesiastical but also a civil ordinance, for the Kirk 
Sessions had legal authority to enforce it. The sacramental fast 
was intended to serve as a preparation for the approaching 
communion, — a kind of Puritan substitute for the old sacramental 
confession. But the religious use gradually declined, the excursion- 
trains on fast-days were crowded, and the churches all but empty. 
It was on that account that the several presbyteries of Glasgow 
abohshed the observance about 1880, and that the presbyteries 
of Edinburgh, as well of the Established as of the Free Kirk and 
the United Presbyterians, followed suit in 1887. Sacrament Fast 
now lingers only in the remote Highlands. There it is the pre- 
lude to the five days of sacrament-time, which extend over from 
Thursday, the fast-day so culled, until the following Monday. 

Salt Water Day. On the second Saturday in August it has 
long been the custom of the farmers of IS"orth eastern New Jersey 
to get out their wagons, and, with wives and children decked 
out in their best, drive down to the sea-shore, where all give 
themselves up to bathing, picnicking, and general merriment. 
By far the most popular place of resort has always been on 
the beach at Wrack Pond, near what is now Sea Girt. South 
Amboy is a far-away second, and other points along the coast 
are or have been sparsely visited. But in all these places, even 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 86 1 

at Sea Girt, Salt Water Day is no longer what it was in the past, 
the finest, simplest, most jovial of all rustic gatherings known 
to the Eastern coast, the only parallel in the North to the 
Southern barbecue. Then none but the farmer class celebrated 
it. They had no bath-houses, no conventional bathing-suits. 
Whole families undressed themselves with the utmost innocence 
in the neighboring woods or in their own wagons (woe to any 
Peeping Tom who took unfair advantage of his opportunities), 
and then, arrayed in all variety of unique and astonishing 
bathing-costumes, sported with boisterous tumult in the sea- 
waves, emerging later to take part in dancing, in singing, in a 
round of country games. This was in the good old days before 
all the coast hereabout had been turned into "resorts," before 
the influx of city folks, before railroads were. Now the summer 
boarders and vagrant interlopers from New York and other 
places thrust their unwelcome presence upon the farmers. The 
Edenic innocence has been disturbed by bath-houses, the quaint 
originality in costumes has been levelled to the hideous common- 
place of the blue flannel bathing-suit, the beach is filled with 
booths and stands for catchpenny games, the trees are hung 
with tawdry bunting and drabbled flags, perspiring performers 
project mechanical music into the atmosphere, and over all there 
hangs heavily the suggestion of evil days and evil ways, of town 
vices, of gambling and drinking and uncanny roistering. 

Therefore it is good that a sympathetic observer has given 
us a sketch of the festival as it appeared in 1891, during the 
period of transition indeed, yet while most of the original fea- 
tures still remained, amid many innovations. Here is an excerpt 
from Hamlin Garland's article in the Cosmopolitan for August, 
1892 : , 

."Packed upon the soft, yellow sand were hundreds and hun- 
dreds of carriages, as various as the garments of the people 
around them. Horses were tied to the wheels, eating oats from 
their boxes, — gaunt, hard-worked horses, whose harnesses hung 
from the whippletrees or were piled under the wagons. Beyond 
them were groups of tents and booths, from which came con- 
fused cries and those high-pitched, brazen rigmaroles which are 
heard at a circus ; and over and beyond them the sea, pinkish 
gray, melted into the infinite haze of the sky. 

" Swarming around these teams and booths, drinking red 
lemonade, eating peanuts, courting and visiting, were the 
blonde and freckled Jerseymen and Jersey-women. The Avhole 
scene was like our universal, characteristic, American county 
fair, only more disorganized, more individual, more sprawling 
in eff'oct. It was strange to me by reason of the sand under my 
feet, the sea at my left, and yet it was familiar in its amuse- 



862 CURIOSITIES OF 

ments, its types, its atmosphere of determined enjoyment. The 
fashionable ladies and gentlemen on the Cliff House veranda 
found it comical. I did not. I knew these people too well to 
laugh at them. 

" But the unfamiliar and most characteristic part of it all, the 
part to which I hastened with most interest, was the bathing. 
Down on the glorious sand strolled the young people ; girls in 
polka-dotted cambric dresses, blue and black; others in the 
blue-ribboned ill-fitting white gowns, common from Maine to 
Dakota, with wilted lilies at their belts and gay hats upon their 
heads. Some of the young men sweltered along in heavy wool- 
len clothing, others carried their coats upon their arms, their 
hats perched jauntily upon the back of their heads. With them, 
among them, in unabashed freedom, walked the bathers, in 
dresses of every sort and length and color ; and they were not 
all young. There were men and women of all ages in suits that 
were not suits, but rigs, — old men in suits of field clothes, brown 
denims, and faded hickory shirts, and old ladies in striped squash- 
figured gowns and blue-checked sunbonnets, all laughingly, tim- 
orously stepping into the water. The bathers and the on-lookers 
were inextricably mixed. Lovers walked along hand in hand, 
lie in an ill-fitting blue flannel bathing-suit, she in a self-con- 
structed sailor gown with awkward pantalets. Children spatted 
along the smooth wet beach in shoals. Farmer boys who had 
never known knickerbockers, and who made no change from 
their usual suits of denims and hickories, with trousers upheld 
by cord suspenders, screamed and scuffled and threw sand at 
each other in boisterous play in the sunny edge of the water. 

" Gathered into a varied line along the beach rope were scores 
of these bathers, of all ages and classes, clinging to the rope, 
desperately in some cases, in all cases shouting in excitement 
and vast delight as the grass-green foam spread glassily curling 
waves and broke over their shoulders." 

The origin of this great annual celebration is not known. 
Someway, somewhere, it started without organization; yet it 
is as certain in its return as the season itself. The common 
tradition is that it arose among the Indians, with whom it was a 
very ancient custom. 

Sardine, Burial of the. An Ash Wednesday custom which 
is frequent in Spain and in many countries where Ash Wednes- 
day is a special feast. The principal feature is the carrying in 
procession of a small paper-covered coffin containing a small 
fish or morsel of sausage, which is buried with great ceremony, 
this being regarded as a symbol of the burial of all worldly 
pleasures and desires during the impending fast. At Madrid a 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 863 > 

vast throng turns out to witness the burial of the sardine on 
the banks of the Manzanares. (See Carnival, King.) 

Saturnalia. An ancient Eoman festival in honor of Saturn, 
celebrated on the 17th of December. Saturn being an ancient- 
national god of Latium, the institution of the Saturnalia is lost 
in the most remote antiquity. Falling towards the end of De- 
cember, at the season when the agricultural labors of the year 
were completed, it was celebrated by the country-people as a' sort 
of joyous harvest home, and in every age was viewed by all 
classes of the community as a period of absolute relaxation 
and unrestrained merriment. The festival was extended in later 
times to three days, and often continued beyond this time. 

During the celebration of this holiday no public business could 
be transacted, the courts were closed, war was suspended, all 
private enmities were for the time forgotten, and the city was 
alive with hilarity. On this day the slaves feasted and were 
waited upon by their masters, as the female slaves were waited 
upon by their mistresses on the Matronalia. The special feature 
of the festival was the gift of wax candles and of little images 
of wax or clay called sigilla. The public festival, in the time of 
the republic, was for only one day ; but for seven days the cele- 
bration continued in private houses. 

Saviour of the Miracle, Our. A life-size figure of Christ 
on a colossal cross, preserved in the collegiate church at Salta, 
in the Argentine Eepublic. Its fame as a wonder-worker draws 
to its shrine a continual stream of pilgrims from all the sur- 
rounding districts, and even from Bolivia, Chili, and Peru. 
Periodical processions are held in its honor. Jabez Balfour, the 
famous English forger and impostor, has preserved in his diary 
a very vivid account of one of these which he witnessed. It is 
quoted in the Fall Mall Gazette for l^ovember 23, 1894. " I have 
seen many street displays," he says, " in England and abroad, 
but none so picturesque and none so truly popular. Nearly the 
whole population of the city turned out either as participators 
in the procession or as spectators. The only element conspicu- 
ously absent was the well-dressed male element, which stood 
ostentatiously aloof. The procession seemed to be largely self- 
organized and arranged. It was preceded by a promiscuous 
crowd of men and boys carrying lighted colored candles. These 
moved along without any attempt at order, as the skirmishers 
or forerunners of the regular procession, which was headed by 
three ecclesiastics carrying a silver cross and two long silver 
staffs. They were followed by some hundreds of men walking 
in two single files, one on each side of the roadway. Nothing 



864 CURIOSITIES OF 

could be more picturesque than the appearance of these men. 
Each one carried a lighted candle. The greater number were 
evidently country-folk of Indian extraction, there being a great 
preponderance of tall men with copper-colored skins, aquiline 
features, shaggy beards, and jet-black eyes and hair; but the 
salient feature, which invested the scene with indescribable pic- 
turesqueness, was the brilliant coloring of the ponchos. Every 
man was dressed in his best, and doubtless many had bought 
new ponchos for the occasion. The bright reds, blues, yellows, 
greens, and browns of the ponchos produced the most striking 
effects, — none the less striking, indeed, because they were ob- 
viously accidental and undesigned and were changing every 
moment as the men passed slowl^y on. The combinations of 
colors were as varied as if produced by the shifting of a kaleido- 
scope. After the long files of men came the highly reverenced 
Image itself, borne aloft on the shoulders of a great number of 
men, and surrounded by an enormous quantity of lighted candles 
and lamps. As the image passed, nearly every spectator uncov- 
ered and knelt. It was followed by long files of young girls 
prettily dressed in white, and with either bright red or bright 
green sashes, and then by ladies in black gowns, with black 
shawls thrown over their heads like hoods. This is the strictly 
conventional go-to-church dress of Salta ladies. All carried 
lighted candles in their hands and had rosaries hanging from 
their waists. The number of ladies was enormous, and must 
have included nearly all the female population of Salta, besides 
a numerous contingent which had come here on a pilgrimage for 
the occasion from the city of Cordoba and consisted of members 
of a sisterhood or association known as the ' Daughters of Jesus.' 
After the ladies came a life-size figure of the Virgin clad in beau- 
tiful bridal attire, and standing on a gilt platform or stage, also 
borne shoulder-high. This was followed by the governor of the 
province, who, bareheaded, looked remarkably handsome, in even- 
ing dress, with white waistcoat and white gloves. He was ac- 
companied by his ministers and the intendente of police in a 
splendid uniform. After these personages came the band and 
two or three weak companies of local troops, and then a con- 
fused crowd of men, women, and police. A curious and rather 
pretty feature in the crowd was the number of little boys, chil- 
dren from three to six years of age, who could just toddle along, 
and who were clad by their fond parents in perfect sacerdotal 
garb, with little white lace surplices over black skirts, and five- 
cornered black caps such as arc worn by priests when in full 
canonicals. J^othing could exceed the good order of the pro- 
cession, or be better than the general decorum of all, rich and 
poor alike, who took part in it. The weight of the platforms or 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



865 



stages which bore the cross and the Yirgin must have been con- 
siderable, but there was always a keen competition among the 
nien for the privilege — which is, indeed, considered a very great 
privilege — of assisting in transporting the sacred and mystic 
emblems through the streets of the city. Of course the bishop 
and some ecclesiastics formed part of the procession, but they 
were by no means conspicuous, and certainly, in spite of gov- 
ernor, bishop, and soldiers, the whole ceremonial was distinctively 
popular, and not official nor ecclesiastical. The occasion of the 
procession was the conclusion of a ' JSTovena' in honor of the 
image of our Saviour, to whose miraculous intervention is at- 
tributed the immunity from serious shocks of earthquake which 
Salta has latterly enjoyed. The fame of this miraculous image 
is by no means local, but is spread throughout a large part of 
South America. It is known as ' Our Saviour of the Miracle,' 
and is almost as great a local institution and power here as Our 
Lady of Lourdes is to the faithful of France." 




ScALA Santa in 1723. 



Scala Santa. (It., " Holy Staircase.") A cherished relic 
preserved in Rome and said to bo the identical staircase in Pilate's 

65 



S66 CURIOSITIES OF 

house which Christ mounted and descended several times on the 
morning of the day of his passion, and which was empurpled 
with his blood when after the flagellation he descended for the 
last time to take his way to Mount Calvary. 

At the top of the Scala Santa the pilgrim comes face to face 
with a dark chapel, which none may enter, but which can be 
looked into through a barred gate. Pope Leo III. deposited 
herein four large caskets full of saintly relics. The chapel is 
known as the Sancta Sanctorum (" Holy of Holies"), and an 
inscription over the gateway reads, " Won est in toto sanctior orbi 
locus'^ (" There is no holier spot in the whole earth"). 

Scambling Days. The ancient English name for the Mon- 
days and Saturdays in Lent, when no regular meals were pro- 
vided, and the members of the great families scambled. In the 
old household-book of the fifth Earl of Northumberland there is a 
particular section appointing the order of service for these days, 
and so regulating the licentious contentions of them. Shake- 
speare, in his play of " Henry Y." (Act v. Scene 2), makes King 
Henry say, "If ever thou be'st mine, Kate, I get thee with 
scambling, and thou must therefore needs prove a good soldier- 
breeder." 

The word scambling is conjectured to be derived from the 
Greek <Txa/x/9oc, " oblique," " indirect." 

The scambling and unquiet time. 

{Henry F., Act i. Sc. 1.) 

(Med. jEvi Kalend., vol. ii. p. 350 ; Antiq. Bepert., 1809, vol. iv. 
pp. 87, 91, 305.) 

Scholastica, St. The sister of the great St. Benedict, near 
whose monastery at Monte Casino she founded and governed a 
nunnery. She visited her holy brother once a year, and, inasmuch 
as she was not allowed to enter his monastery, he went out with 
some of his monks to meet her at some distance. Once she 
begged him to stay all night and converse with her. He re- 
fused. Thereupon she appealed to the Almighty, who sent a 
storm of thunder and lightning so great that it was impossible 
for any one to venture out in it. " God forgive you, sister," 
said Benedict, " w^hat have you done ?" She answered, " I 
asked of you, a favor, and you refused it to me : I asked it of 
Almighty God, and he has granted it me." Three days later, 
February 10 (circa 543), she died. 

At Monte Casino it is claimed that, although the original 
monastery and the nunnery were both destroyed by the Lom- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 867 

bards in the seventh century, the relics of brother and sister 
still remain, and they are shown in the new monastery. 

On the other hand, it is asserted that the relics were trans- 
lated into France and deposited in a rich silver shrine, still 
extant, in the collegiate church of St. Peter, in Mans. The 
festival of the translation is kept on July 11 in Mans. 

At Oxford the feast of St. Scholastica, February 10, is mem- 
orable in collegiate annals as being the anniversary of the most 
furious of all Town and Gown {q. v.) rows in the year 1355. The 
townsmen had the best of it, and there is little doubt that they 
abused their victory unmercifully. Forty scholars are said to 
have lost their Hves. Some of those taken prisoners are said 
to have been scalped in mockery of the clerical tonsure. Cruci- 
fixes and holy vessels were torn from the churches and profaned 
by a drunken mob. The better part of the citizens were ashamed 
of the excesses which had been committed, and shocked at the 
number of the victims. The sheriff of Oxfordshire was dis- 
missed from his office. An interdict laid upon the city was only 
removed by the consent of the authorities to an indenture under 
the university and city seals, by which the mayor, bailiffs, and 
chief citizens to the number of sixty-two bound themselves to 
appear annually at mass in St. Mary's Church on the fatal day 
of St. Scholastica and offer there each a penny, and also to pay 
a yearly fine of a hundred marks, which latter obligation was 
subsequently relaxed on condition of the due fulfilment of the 
former. The citizens always chafed sorely against this ordi- 
nance, under whatever modification. It came at last to a simple 
jattendance at the reading of the Litany. But, though thus 
modified by consent of the university from time to time, it con- 
tinued actually in force until the present century. In 1800, the 
hundred marks were sued for and recovered from the Mayor of 
Oxford for making default. At last, in 1825, the university, at 
the request of the town council, gracefully consented to waive 
a ceremony which only served to keep up the memory of an 
unhappy feud of ages past, and could not but be regarded by 
the citizens in the light of a humiliation. 

Scoppio del Carro. (It., "Explosion of the Car.") An 
Easter Eve ceremony peculiar to Florence, Italy. At about 
eleven o'clock in the morning of Holy Saturday the huge and 
clumsy vehicle which for centuries has been used at this function 
is drawn into the Piazza del Duomo by four white oxen gayly 
decorated with scarlet sashes and bunches of flowers. The 
body of the carro is festooned with rows of green, red, and 
white fireworks. After the oxen have been unhitched and led 
away to a side-street, a wire is attached to the carro, the other 



868 CURIOSITIES OF 

end beiDg fastened to the high altar of the Duomo. Then a 
procession of priests files out from the baptistery and crosses 
over into the Duomo to oflSciate at the services. Just at twelve 
o'clock an artificial dove, known as the Colombina, dashes along 
the wire from the altar to the carro, bearing in its beak a spark 
of fire from the sacred flame which burns there continually. It 
is a popular superstition that if the dove succeeds in lighting 
the fuse of the fireworks and returns safely to the altar a good 
harvest will follow. Hence thousands of peasants crowd into 
the square and the cathedral on the fateful day. In former 
times the Colombina occasionally missed the mark, and then the 
peasantry were so overwhelmed with pessimistic fears that their 
own lack of energy brought about only too surely the fulfilment 
of the prophecy. But modern improvements in pyrotechnic 
mechanism make disappointment practically impossible. With 
much crackling and sputtering and then with report after re- 
port, like toy pistols, the red, white, and green fireworks go oflP 
amid the joyous shouts and cheers of the people. The oxen are 
brought back and reharnessed, and then the old car lumbers off 
with a stream of spectators behind it to the Palazzo Pandolfini. 
Here it is again brought to a halt, and the last row of fireworks 
is set off according to time-honored custom. For it was a 
Pandolfini who in the crusading ages brought the sacred flame 
from Jerusalem to Florence. Legend says that he rode back- 
ward all the way, to protect it from the possibility of extin- 
guishing draughts. 

Scramble Feast. The name given by foreigners to a cere- 
mony that takes place yearly in the Eigpoot town of Ajmeer 
on the anniversary of the local saint, and in front of his shrine. 
Two huge caldrons, each containing manj^ thousand pounds 
of rice and butter, are filled to the brim, and this gigantic mess 
is then served out broadcast amid the myriads of native beg- 
gars that always assemble for the occasion, many for want of 
any other receptacle extending their clasped hands for the scald- 
ing rice. After this the keepers of the shrine, and the inhab- 
itants of a favored part of the town who have enjoyed the 
prescriptive right from time immemorial, swathe themselves in 
thick shawls as a protection against the heated metal, and, 
scrambling into the caldrons, scrape them clean. 

What are known as Scrambling Charities or Scrambling Doles 
(see Dole) are not uncommon in England. The most remark- 
able is one at St. Briavel's, Gloucestershire. It is thus described 
in the Gentleman' s Magazine for 1816 : " On Whit Sunday sev- 
eral baskets full of bread and cheese cut into small squares of 
an inch each are brought into church ; and immediately after 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 869 

divine service is ended, the churchwardens, or some other per- 
sons, take them up into the galleries, whence their contents are 
thrown among the congregation, who have a grand scramble 
for them in the body of the church. This occasions as great a 
tumult and uproar as the amusements of tbe village wake, the 
inhabitants being always extieri\ely anxious to attend worship 
on this day. The custom is holden for the purpose of preserving 
to the poor of St. Briavel's and Hewelsfield the right of cutting 
and carrying away wood from three thousand acres of coppice- 
land, for which each housekeeper is assessed twopence to buy 
the bread and cheese which are given away." 

The most recent endowment of the sort seems to be at Wath, 
near Eotherham, where one Tuke, dying in the year 1810, left, 
among other strange bequests, forty dozen penny loaves to be 
thrown from the church leads at twelve o'clock on Christmas 
Day forever. 

Sebald, St. The legend of this saint describes him as the 
son of a Danish king, who in the eighth century settled in Eng- 
land and accompanied St. Boniface on his mission to Germany. 
Many miracles and conversions are ascribed to him. He is said 
to have changed stones into bread and water into wine with 
which to feed his fellow -missionaries. One day he came into a 
hut where a poor family was perishing with cold, and turned 
the icicles on the roof to fuel. He lived the greater part of his 
life near ^N^uremberg. His remains are interred in a magnificent 
bronze shrine, the work of Peter Visscher and his five sons, 
which stands in the elegant church dedicated to the saint in 
that city. The shrine encloses the oaken chest encased with 
silver plates which contains th^ saint's body. 

Sebastian, St., patron of Chiemsee, Mannheim, Getting, 
Palma, Eome, Soissons, of makers of military laces, of archers and 
makers of fencing-foils. His festival is celebrated on January 20. 

St. Sebastian was born at Narbonne, in Gaul, but his parents 
were natives of Milan, and he was brought up in the latter city. 
He was secretly a Christian, although he served in the Eoman 
army. He was placed in command of the first cohort by the 
Emperors Diocletian and Maximian. He used his power to the 
utmost for the protection of his fellow-Christians, and converted 
many of his companions. Two brothers, Marcus and Marcel- 
lianus, were suspected of being Christians and were put to the 
torture. They were expecting execution in prison, and their 
relatives and friends, who were admitted to sec them, implored 
them to save their lives by denying the Christian faith. Sebas- 
tian heard of this, and immediately went to the prison, when ho 



870 



CURIOSITIES OF 



not oDly succeeded in holding the two young men true to their 
faith, but converted the relatives and friends. St. Sebastian was 
finally denounced as a Christian, and was ordered by Diocletian 
to be shot to death with arrows. He was taken to a field and 
pierced with many arrows by archers and left for dead. But a 
devout widow named Irene, who came to bury the bod}^, found 
that he still lived, and took him to her home, where she tended 
him until he recovered. Sebastian determined to confront Dio- 
cletian, and one day, hearing the trumpet notes which told of 
the Emperor's approach, he went out and addressed Diocletian, 
pleading for the persecuted Christians and rebuking him for his 
sins. The Emperor was amazed at the sight of Sebastian, 
whom he thought dead, and was enraged at his words. He 
caused the saint to be beaten to death with clubs, and his 
body to be thrown into a sewer, whence it was rescued by a 
Christian woman named Lucina, who buried it in the Cata- 
combs. From his connection with arrows, St. Sebastian came 
to be regarded as the especial patron saint against pestilence, 
which is symbolized by arrows. There is a tablet in San Pietro 
in Yincoli in Home recording a notable instance of the deliver- 
ance by St. Sebastian of that city from the plague. 

The relics of the saint were translated to Soissons, in France, 
in 826, and are scattered in various places, some at Soissons, the 
head at Ebernach, in Luxemburg, and other portions at Mantua, 
Malaga, Seville, Toulouse, Munich, Paris, Tournay, Antwerp, and 
Brussels. 

In art the saint can always be recognized as a young man 
transfixed with arrows. 




Martyrdom of St. Secundus. 



Secundus, St., patron of Asti, in which Italian city he was 
martyred on March 30, 119, by having his head cut off. The 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 871 

anniversary of his death is celebrated there with much pomp. 
His relics are preserved in the church dedicated to him. 

Sementivae, Ferise. ("Feast of Sowing.") iln ancient 
Eoman festival celebrated in January. 

The Feriae Sementivae was a movable feast, and was held on 
two days in January a week apart. This was the first of the 
long series of agricultural festivals, the number and antiquity 
of which are the best proofs that Eome was at first a commu- 
nity of peasants. Sacrifices were made to Tellus, the earth, and 
Ceres, goddess of agriculture ; and all the minor deities who 
presided over the several operations of tillage were invoked to 
be propitious : Yervactor, the god of breaking up fallow land ; 
Eeparator, of renewing its powers ; Obarator, of ploughing ; Oc- 
cator, of harrowing ; Imporcitor, of drawing furrows ; Insitor, 
of grafting; Sarritor, of hoeing; Subruncinator, of weeding; 
Messor, of harvesting; Convector, of gathering in ; Conditor, 
of storing up ; Promitor, of bringing out for use. So minute 
were the Eomans in their religious observances ; and, for fear 
that any divine power had been overlooked, they were wont to 
add in their prayers, sive deo, sive dece (" any unknown god, male 
or female") ; but always Janus was called upon first. On the 
same day with the Sementivae the Paganalia were celebrated in 
the country, — the feast of the townships, — pagi, — when the 
seed was all in the ground, the plough was laid away until 
spring, and the cattle rested in the stall. 

Separation of the Waters. (Fr. La Separation des Baux.) 
A festival celebrated annually at Avignon in honor of a miracle 
that occurred there November^O, 1433, during a general inunda- 
tion of the valley from the overflow of the Ehone, the Durance, 
and the Sorgue. The water had risen to so great a height around 
the church of the Gray Penitents at Avignon that the brethren, 
fearing it might reach the niche containing the eucharist, went 
thither in a boat, but found the waters parted, leaving a dry 
passage to the altar, as between two crystal walls. This was 
attested by twelve Penitents, three doctors of theology, and 
many lay persons. Cardinal Fieschi witnessed it, and Theophile 
Eaynaud speaks of it as a well-known fact. This occurrence has 
been celebrated in several hymns in the Latin and Provencal 
tongues, and in a famous epigram : 

Suspendit Jordanis aqua cum permeat Area ; 

Ad te, Christe, viarn pensilis unda dedit ; 
Quae quondam Domini cognoverat unda vol unibram, 

Non nosset Dominum quern videt ilia suum ? 



872 CURIOSITIES OF 

("The water of Jordan parts while the Ark passes through. To you, O 
Christ, the overhanging wave yields a way. That element which once had 
recognized the mere symbol of the Lord, would it not know him when it saw 
him in person ?") 

Besides the anniversary a jubilee celebration takes place every 
twenty-five years to commemorate both the Separation of the 
Waters and the historic procession instituted by Louis YIII. 
(See Cross, Exaltation of the.) The last of these occurred in 
1876. " All the Gray Penitents in the south of France take part. 
The procession begins at the church of the Holy Cross. There 
are six or seven hundred Cray Penitents alone, some v^ith great 
golden batons curiously wrought, some with tall girandoles, the 
branches set with burning tapers, and others with torches of all 
sizes, from one pound in weight up to fifty, and adorned with 
silver shields covered with religious devices. Mingled with them 
are bands of musicians, with trumpets, viols, rural pipes, or 
strange instruments like the Set Gau, — the Seven Joys,-^-used in 
many country churches of Provence, consisting of a wheel with 
seven bells that gayly ring out every note of the gamut : 

Et les Sept Joies au timbre clair 
Carillonnaient joyeusement. 

(Mistral.) 

There are white-winged choristers w^ith clear, flute-like voices ; 
white-robed priests chanting some angelic hymn, like the ' Sacris 
Solemniis,' or, clad in silvery copes, bearing the rich Gremium, 
or carrying feretories, and coffers, and golden busts, and silver 
hands and arms, containing relics of the blessed saints, or beauti- 
ful statues of Our Lady and the saints popular at Avignon, such 
as St. Agricol, invoked in every public calamity, and St. Martha, 
dear to every housewife. There are dignitaries with silver 
maces, magistrates en grande tenue, Swiss guards with halberds 
on their shoulders, and companies of foot-soldiers and cavalry 
with stirring martial music. Bands of children are scattering 
flowers, — the golden gorse, the sweet roses of Provence, roses 
first brought from the East by the Crusaders, leaves of the 
fennel, the ferigoulo, and other aromatic j^lants that grow pro- 
fusely on every cliff of this region. The ways are carpeted with 
them and embowered with arches of verdure. There are lamps 
at every Madonna shrine at the corners or before the houses. 
The narrow, sunless streets are hung with tapestries and gay 
cloths and floating banners, and aflame with long lines of tapers, 
borne by the procession, looking like the aisles of some vast 
cathedral. The bells of the Yille Sonnante are in full peal. 
" In the midst of all this grandeur appears the divine host — O 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 873 

Salutaris Hostia ! — borne by priests in spotless robes, with a look 
of awe on their faces, attended by a band of levites, some swing- 
ing smoking censers, others witii baskets of flowers they are 
scatteriu*i; in ihe air. Around blaze huge torches of four wicks, 
bearing silver shields, on which, in repousse work, is a glittering 
cross, the sun-like emblem of the Blessed Sacrament, or the 
watchword of the Penitents, — Gloria, Laus et Honor ! 

" Here and there on the way are reposoirs as beautiful as 
flowers and lights can make them; everywhere the church doors 
are open, the convent gates wide spread, with monks kneeling 
at the entrance, — monks now banished from their peaceful homes, 
— or abbesses at the head of their nuns, or pious confraternities, 
to hail the coming of the Lord. There are looks and attitudes 
of devotion on every side. At every hand there is a fresh salute, 
a new outburst of music, more clouds of incense, a fresh rain of 
flowers, a more joyous frenzy of bells. 

" At length the procession winds up to the Eocher des Doms. 
It ascends the sacred escalier du Fater to the cathedral, which is 
once more to be divinely blessed. There in the broad portal 
stands the venerable archbishop, attended by the canons in their 
robes. The prelate lays aside his mitre and crosier at the appear- 
ance of the host. He raises it on high. The whole city, in move- 
ment an instant before, is now silent and prostrate. A thousand 
lights blaze on the heights of the Doms. The ' Pange, lingua' is 
sung by thousands of voices. There is a display of fireworks, 
and a salute of cannon from the ramparts, as, from the verge of 
this lofty terrace overlooking Avignon, the divine benediction is 
solemnly given to the kneeling crowd." (Catholic World, July, 
1886.) 

September. The name comes from the Latin septimus, 
"seventh," because under the ten-month calendar, and after- 
w^ards under the reckoning which made March the beginning of 
the year, September was the seventh month. After July and 
August (originally Quintilis, " fifth./' and Sextilis, " sixth") had 
been so named in honor of Julius Caesar and Augustus, several 
Eoman Emperors sought to give their names to September, but 
in this case the innovation did not survive. Julius Caesar gave 
September thirty-one days in his revision of the calendar, but 
it was subsequently reduced to thirty days by Augustus, who 
changed the length of all the months after August in order to 
give his titular month the same length as July. 

The Saxons called September Gerstmonath, or Barley-Month, 
this crop, from which their favoriie beverage was brewed, being 
then gathered. It is still called Herbstmonat, or Harvest Month, 
in Switzerland. The harvest-moon comes in this month, being 



874 



CURIOSITIES OF 



the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox. For several even- 
ings the moon rises near sunset, thus enabling the harvesters to 




September. Hunting— Pasturing Swine. 

extend their day's work, — a phenomenon less noticed in the 
United States than in England and Northern Europe. The 
autumnal equinox occurs about September 24. 

September, Sixteenth of. This is the Independence Day 
of Mexico, when every city, town, and village puts on its gayest 
attire and gives itself up to merriment. Not w^ith the boom of 
cannon or the crackling of fire-crackers is the da}^ ushered in, 
but with the music of military bands stationed in the "portales" 
or the plaza. Cock-fights and bull-fights fill up the daytime. In 
the evening the plaza, gayly decorated with bunting and lan- 
terns, becomes the general meeting-ground. The band is sta- 
tioned under the canopy of a kiosk in the centre, around which 
circles a constant stream of humanity. Women walk in one 
direction, and men in the other. 

Hidalgo, the Washington of Mexico, only proclaimed inde- 
pendence : unlike his prototype, he did not achieve it. It was on 
Saturday night, September 15, 1810, that this patriotic Mexican 
priest with a few chosen followers liberated a few prisoners in 
Dolores and armed them. The next morning from his pulpit he 
declared the independence of Mexico, and made a passionate 
appeal to his parishioners to follow his leadership and fight to free 
the country from the hated Spaniard. This was Sunday, Sep- 
tember 16. 

A new Yiceroy — Don Francisco Xaver Yenegas — had just 
takeh up the reins of government in Mexico when this movement 
occurred. The imperial troops were sent against the priest, and 
were completely routed at Monte de las Cruces, near the city of 
Mexico. Hidalgo, instead of immediately pressing forward into 
the city with his victorious patriots, withdrew to the city of Que- 
retaro. A new force of Spanish troops was massed in the mean 
time, and the independents were disastrously routed at Aculco. 
But one more stand was made by Hidalgo at Puente de Calderon, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 876 

near Guadalajara, and, again meeting defeat, the patriots fled 
towards the northern frontier. 

At Las Norias de Bajan, near the Eio Grande, they were cap- 
tured, and Hidalgo, Ailende, Aldama, and Jimenez, the four 
leaders, were shot in the city of Chihuahua, on June 26, 1811. 
Thus ended the first effort made by Mexico for freedom. But 
the cause lived. The Mexicans were aroused. The country was 
but a sleeping volcano. Spain knew it well, but still continued 
the system of misgovernment, which had but the one result, — 
independence. The heads of the patriots were exposed for days 
on poles at Guanajuato. In later years they were buried with 
great pomp in the cathedral at the city of Mexico. 

September, T'wentieth of. The anniversary of the final 
union of Italy under Victor Emmanuel through the downfall of 
the temporal power of the Papacy. The Papacy virtually fell 
with the second Napoleonic Empire. For many years the bayo- 
i^ets of France had alone upheld it against the wishes of the 
majority of Italians. With his first reverses in the Franco-Prus- 
sian war Napoleon III. saw that he would need all his available 
forces to oppose the formidable foe into which Prussia had de- 
veloped. Only a remnant of Zouaves were left in Eome. the 
larger part of the French forces being withdrawn from Civita 
Yecchia shortly after the outbreak of the war, Yiclor Emman- 
uel was not slow to seize the opportunity thus presented. He 
acted immediately on receiving news of the great French defeat 
at Gravelotte. But his first appeal was to diplomacy and not to 
force. A revolution was imminent in Eome itself The Italian 
king notified the Pope that the duty of maintaining order in the 
peninsula and the security of the Holy See had devolved upon 
himself, and that in the despatch of this duty his army must 
enter the Pontifical States. He begged the Pope to yield to the 
will of the people and accept a guarantee of his income and of 
his own personal independence. To these demands the Pope re- 
turned a spirited refusal. Thereupon the Sardinian troops crossed 
the frontier. They were met everywhere with enthusiasm by 
the Pope's own subjects. 

On September 20, 1870, they arrived before the walls of Eome. 
General Cadorna summoned the garrison to surrender. Only a 
feint of resistance was made. Hardly had the invaders opened 
a bombardment when the white flag of surrender was displayed 
upon the ramparts. Next day the Zouaves, nine thousand in 
number, were massed in the square of St. Peter's to receive the 
Papal blessing, and after the conclusion of the ceremony marched 
out of Eome. With their departure the temporal power of the 
Pope ceased to exist. 



876 cvniosiTms of 

On October 2 a plebiscite was held. The numbers are signifi- 
cant : for the King, 40,788 ; for the Pope, 46. But though the 
work was thus accomplished in the autumn of 1870 it was not 
until January 2, 1871, that the king made his triumphant march 
into the new capital of united Italy. 

The 20th of September is one of the great secular holidays 
of Italy, observed with especial ceremony. But many Catholics 
keep it as a day of fasting and humiliation. 

Septuagesima. The third Sunday before Lent. (See Quin- 
QUAGEsiMA.) It was formerly distinguished in England by a 
strange ceremony denominated the Funeral of Alleluia. On the 
Saturday of Septuagesima, at nones, the choristers assembled in 
the great vestiary of the cathedral, and there arranged the 
ceremony. Having finished the last benedicamus, they advanced 
with crosses, torches, holy water, and incense, carrying a turf 
in the manner of a coflSn, passed through the choir, and went 
howling to the cloister as far as the place of interment ; and 
then, having sprinkled the water and censed the place, they re- 
turned by the same road. (Fosbroke : British Monachism, 1843, 
p. 56.) 

Sepulchre, Church of the Holy. This most sacred of all 
the holy places in the world, "in comparison of which," as Dean 
Stanley says, " all the rest sink into insignificance if it is genuine, 
the interest of which even if not genuine stands absolutely alone 
in the world," stands in the northwestern part of Jerusalem and 
encloses within its walls the site of Calvary as well as the tomb 
of Christ, these holy spots being only about sixty feet distant 
from each other. According to tradition, the Eomans under 
Hadrian, with the deliberate intention of insulting the Christian 
religion, filled the Holy Sepulchre with earth and built an idola- 
trous temple on the spot. This was in 137. Two centuries later 
Constantine, after the Council of Nice, determined to rescue from 
profanation the places consecrated by the life and death of Christ. 
The Holy Sepulchre was his first care. He directed that a mag- 
nificent church should be built over it in honor of our Lord's 
Resurrection. This was consecrated in 335. (See Cross, Inven- 
tion OF THE.) The church maintained its grandeur until the 
beginning of the seventh century. Then began a series of 
vicissitudes which culminated in 1187, when the church, after 
captures and recaptures, passed definitively into the hands of 
the Saracens under the Sultan Saladin. It is now part of the 
possessions of his successor the Sultan of Turkey. 

Though the earlier part of the tradition has been assailed, 
there is no possible doubt that since the time of Constantine the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 877 

church of the Holy Sepulchre has been revered by the larger 
part of the Christian world " as the scene of the greatest events 
in the world's history, and has itself in time become for that 
reason the centre of a cycle of events of incomparably less 
magnitude, indeed, but yet of an interest in the highest degree 
romantic." (Dean Stanley : Sinai and Palestine.) 

The Turkish government suffers the presence of Christians 
within the sacred edifice, both as spectators and as resident 
guardians. 

The central body of the church, answering to the nave, as the 
rotunda, which contains the Holy Sepulchre, answers to choir 
and apse, is the Greek chapel, and the most magnificent in the 
building. The portion of the church set apart to the Latins, 
opening also out of the rotunda, is merely a small chapel. The 
Armenians have still more contracted accommodations, and the 
poor Copts and Syrians enjoy but a closet apiece. 

Each of the rival sects, under regulations imposed by the 
Turks to preserve peace and order, has access to the various 
Holy Places and other objects of general reverence. There are 
in all thirty-seven of these. The most important are the follow- 
ing: 

The Stone of Unction, a rectangular mass of rose-colored 
marble about eight feet long and four feet wide, whereon tradition 
asserts that the body of Christ was laid when it was anointed 
for burial. 

The tombs of IN'icodemus and of Joseph of Arimathea. 

The spots where the Virgin stood at the crucifixion and at the 
anointment of the body respectively. 

The spots at which Christ appeared respectively to Mary 
Magdalene and to the Virgin Mar3\ 

A fragment of the column of flagellation. 

The tomb of Melchizedek. 
> The chair in which Helena sat when the cross was found. The 
spots marking the successive stages in the Invention or finding 
of the cross are duly tabulated. 

The tomb of Adam. 

Various spots where Christ stood at different stages of the 
passion. 

The tomb of Christ, or Holy Sepulchre. This, the most im- 
portant of all Christian relics, is in the centre of the rotunda. 
It is a marble structure, about thirty feet high, twenty-five feet 
long, and seventeen feet wide. It is more like a chapel than a 
tomb. Candles cover the front and sides. Curious brass lamps 
with glass globes of different colors hang like a frieze around its 
alabaster top, and between these are oil-paintings with scriptural 
scenes upon them. In its front, in gold pillars as high as a man, 



878 CURIOSITIES OF 

are columDS of painted wax, each six inches thick and twelve 
feet long, and at the top of each of these a flame trembles. 

A low door admits you to a vestibule. In its centre stands a 
column three feet high supporting a piece of the stone that was 
rolled from the door of Christ's tomb. From the vestibule you 
pass into the tomb itself The room is so small that it will hold 
only four persons. It is dimly lighted with candles, and a Greek 
priest in cap and gown is always on guard. At the right of the 
room, set into the wall, there is a marble slab of the purest white, 
which rests upon another slab about four feet high, forming a 
box or ledge, which fills one side of the room. This is the box 
wherein Christ's body is said to have lain. 

The daily religious functions and ceremonies are of a unique 
character, combining the splendors of both the Eastern and 
Western Churches. The sacred liturgy is celebrated daily at 
midnight by the three recognized communities, the Greeks 
officiating first. The Greeks have preserved the old Oriental 
liturgical chant, which is similar to that of the Eastern nations. 
They make no use of the organ for accompaniment, as the 
instrument cannot well be adapted to the strange modulations 
of their voices. About one o'clock they begin their mass, and 
this ceremony varies in length and solemnity according to the 
feasts. The patriarch and the bishops wear gorgeous vestments, 
and on these occasions use crowns instead of mitres. 

The Armenians celebrate after the Greeks. Their liturgy is 
more grave, the chant being uneven and mournful, and being 
accompanied by the sound of little bells attached to disks which 
are carried on long stems by acolytes. Church-bells are not in 
favor with them. They use instead, as in early times, a wooden 
or metallic plank, upon which they strike with hammers. The 
noise thus created is deafening and disagreeable. 

With the Latins da}^ begins at midnight, when the Franciscans 
repair to the choir to say the matins, which last until about half- 
past one. After this they take a short rest and then say their 
masses. The greater part of the day is occupied by various 
offices and meditations. Their spare time is devoted to the 
spiritual wants of the pilgrims, to study, or to literary work. 
The meals are sent from the convent of St. Saviour, which is 
about five minutes' walk from the Holy Sepulchre. When the 
basilica is closed the food is passed in through an aperture in the 
main door. 

The influx of pilgrims and tourists to Jerusalem increases 
with every year. The French have organized an annual pil- 
grimage, which generally takes place about Pentecost, and have 
built a special pilgrim-house called Notre-Dame de France. The 
pilgrims, as a rule, remain about two weeks. The Germans and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 879 

Austrians have also their pilgrim-houses in the Holy City. The 
Austrian house is situated on the Yia Dolorosa, and has been 
honored by the presence of the Emperor, his unfortunate son 
Eudolpb, and other members of the imperial family. Spain 
organizes an occasional pilgrimage, and so does Italy. The first 
English Catholic pilgrimage took place in 1890, when, for the 
first time since the Crusades, the halls of the basilica resounded 
with English hymns. It was headed by the Duke of Norfolk 
and the late Bishop Clifford. America had its pilgrimage in 
1889. It was headed by the Yery Eeverend Charles A. Yissani, 
and numbered about one hundred persons. A beautiful silk 
banner from the United States was deposited at the Holy Sepul- 
chre and is displayed there on great festivals. 

Eussia sends the greatest contingent of pilgrims to the Holy 
Land. During Lent all the streets are crowded with them. 
They lead a verj- frugal life, and visit all the holy places on foot, 
often walking for days at a time. Many of them never see their 
homes again, but find a resting-place in Palestine. Nearly all 
of them buy their shrouds in Jerusalem, which they rub over 
the stone of unction for sanctification. They generally leave on 
the Holy Saturday of the Greeks, immediately after witnessing 
the ceremony of the Holy Fire. 

Both the movable and the immovable festivals of the Greeks, 
Armenians, etc., being founded on the old calendar, differ in 
date from those of the Latins, — a lucky circumstance, because, 
even as it is, the struggles between the rival sects to obtain 
precedence at the great ceremonies of the year sometimes lead 
to disgraceful and even bloody scenes. 

The ceremony of the Holy Fire, therefore, which takes place 
on the Greek Holy Saturdayj-and which is the most remark- 
able ceremonial performed within the church, is not participated 
in by the Latins. They have not taken part in it for three 
centuries, and the Pope protests against it. The Greeks claim 
that it has been celebrated ever since the time of the apostles. 
They hold it to be an annually recurrent miracle. The fire, they 
maintain, comes down from heaven. This occurs precisely at 
two o'clock in the afternoon of Holy Saturday in the tomb of 
the Holy Sepulchre. 

On the previous night hundreds of pilgrims sleep in the 
different chapels and in the rotunda, in order to hold good places 
for the morrow. In the morning all the lights in the church are 
put out. Every one has a bunch of unlighted candles in his 
hand. Shortly after one the ceremonies begin. The Greek 
patriarch and his bishops in gorgeous dresses march three times 
round the sepulchre behind a flag and a cross. They pray God 
to send down the fire. There arc chanting and crossing, and then 



880 



CURIOSITIES OF 



the Copts follow their Ethiopian patriarch, gorgeous in his gold 
cap and gown. 

" Now there is silence. The Greek patriarch has entered 
the sepulchre, and every one is waiting for the fire. There is 
nothing to prevent the holy man from lighting it with a surrep- 
titious lucifer match. But to suspect this would be blasphemy. 




Distributing the Holy Fire. 



"There are holes in the sepulchre through which suddenly 
the crowd sees a faint light shining out. There is a mighty 
shout. The Turkish soldiers struggle to keep the crowd back. 
Men with whips run this way and that, making roads through 
the mass, which the soldiers try to keep clear. The priests 
stand at the holes in the walls, and great bunches of candles are 
passed in. They are handed out lighted, and fleet-footed run- 
ners seize them and run to the various chapels. The Copt 
chapel, at the back of the sepulchre, blazes with lights, and in 
less time than it takes me to write this sentence, the whole of 
the mass below me is a blaze of fire. Every man, woman, 
and child has his or her candle lighted, and the lights are hauled 
up by strings from one gallery to the other. Fleet-footed mes- 
sengers, emerging from the church, carry the holy fire all over 
Palestine, to Bethlehem and to Nazareth, to the Sea of Galilee, 
and to the diiferent parts of the earth from which the pilgrims 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 881 

come. The interest in this ceremony is as great as that which 
surrounds the Passion Play of Oberammergau." (Frank Car- 
penter : faster in Jerusalem, in the Cosmopolitan Magazine.) 

Setsubun. A movable Japanese festival celebrated at the 
beginning of the natural year, when winter first softens into 
spring. On this day occurs the ceremony of Oni-yarai, or cast- 
ing out of devils. The exorcist wandering through the streets 
crying, " Devils out ! Good fortune in !" is eagerly welcomed 
into native houses to perform his feat, which consists in the 
recitation of certain prayers and the rattling of a wand called a 
shakujo. Then dried peas are thrown about the house in four 
directions. Japanese devils have a loathing for dried peas such 
as Satan in Europe is fabled to cherish for holy water. The 
peas, having accomplished their function of expelling the devils, 
are swept up and carefully preserved until the first clap of 
spring thunder is heard, when it is the custom to cook and eat 
some of them. 

In order to prevent the devils from returning, a small piece 
of stick perforating a leaf of holly and crowned with a fish's 
head is affixed to every doorway. No one appears to know the 
origin of these superstitions, and they are now merely accepted 
as giving occasion for merrymaking. 

Shakespeare Celebrations. William Shakespeare was born 
on April 23, 1564, and died on his birthday in 1616. But the 
first Shakespeare Jubilee so called was held in a year and at 
a season not associated in any way with those dates. In 1769, 
the erection of a new town-hall at Stratford- on- Avon, and the 
presentation to David Garrick of the freedom of the borough, en- 
closed in a box made from the wood of Shakespeare's mulberry- 
tree, suggested a further holiday to the townsmen in association 
with their great poet. A temporary amphitheatre was con- 
structed ; cannon, fireworks, and illumination lamps were sent 
down from London ; Birmingham produced a " Shakespeare 
medal," and Coventry a " Shakespeare ribbon." On the 6th of 
September serenaders awakened the townsmen and visitors at an 
early hour in the morning ; a public breakfast took place at nine 
o'clock, with Garrick officiating as one of the stewards ; the cor- 
poration and principal visitors went to hear Arne's oratorio of 
"Judith" performed in the parish church ; all went then in pro- 
cession, headed by choralists and instrumentalists, to the amphi- 
theatre, purposely taking a route by the front of Shakespeare's 
house ; and at three o'clock a grand banquet was given. Allow- 
ing themselves a few hours' rest after so much hard sight-seeing, 
the guests reassembled in the amphitheatre, where a ball was 

56 



882 CURIOSITIES OF 

held ; while the humbler folk were amused with illuminations 
and fireworks out of doors. Thus ended the first day. On the 
second day, a downpour of rain checked a grand out-door die- 
play, and therefore the amusements were confined chiefly to a 
public breakfast, recitations and musical accompaniments, a pub- 
lic banquet, a dinner, a concert, and a masquerade. The third 
day was as unpropitious as the second ; heavy rain spoiled all the 
plan for a grand theatrical procession and pageant through the 
town, in which a hundred actors and actresses trom London were 
to take part, dressed for various characters in Shakespeare's 
plays. 

Pageants and festivals in years really associated with the anni- 
versaries of Shakespeare's birth and death have not been numer- 
ous. One was held by the Shakespeare Club at Stratford-on- 
Avon on the birthday of the poet in 1827, and the two following 
days, during which a pageant, something like that devised by 
Garrick fifty-eight years before, was performed. 

So much money was realized from the visits of the twenty 
thousand strangers that local speculators got up a similar affair 
in 1830, — very gay, but very unpoetical. Minor rejoicings were 
held at Stratford in 1836 and later years, but in 1864 an attempt 
was made to celebrate the real tricentenary of Shakespeare's 
birth. Stratford-on-Avon had many days' rejoicing, and in Lon- 
don there was a little ceremonial at the Agricultural Hall, a little 
at the Crystal Palace, and the planting of a Shakespeare Oak on 
Primrose Hill. 

Shebuoth. (Heb., '-Feast of Weeks.") One of the three 
great festivals of the Jewish ecclesiastical year. It was the 
lieast of the ingathered harvest (hence sometimes known as Chag 
Haggatsir, or Feast of Harvest), but the later Jews have given 
it a deeper significance as the anniversary of the proclamation 
of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. It is kept on the 
sixth and seventh days of the third month, Sivan, the former 
being the fiftieth day after the beginning of the Passover. 
Hence the Greek name TrevnyzofTr^y, or pentecost, " the fiftieth," 
under which it is mentioned in the New Testament. (See Whit- 
sunday.) The title Feast of Weeks indicates that it marks the 
completion of seven weeks, counting from the second day of 
Passover, when the Jews of Palestine presented their omer of 
newly reaped barley in the temple. As the second day of Pass- 
over was the celebration over the barley crop, so Shebuoth is 
the rejoicing over the wheat, the first ears of which were then 
offered up in the temple. But as among the Western nations 
the holiday does not occur during the wheat harvest, but 
when the flowers are in full bloom, it is made a sort of floral 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 883 

festival, the synagogues being decorated with flowers and shrubs. 
Strict Jews sit up on the first night to read the law and the 
prophets. 

Among the Eeformed Jews this is the chosen day for the 
confirmation of youth, when boys and girls over the age of thir- 
teen are submitted to a public catechising, and if deemed suffi- 
ciently instructed are solemnly admitted to church membership. 
Emerging from the underlying school, they march up the aisles 
of the synagogue to the platform occupied by the rabbi, make 
avowal of their belief, and pledge themselves to live in accord- 
ance with their faith. The rabbi then throws open the doors of 
the ark behind the pulpit, revealing the sacred scrolls, and be- 
tween him and the ark pass long strings of catechumens. On 
each head in succession his hand rests in blessing. Then they 
slowly wend their way to the family pews. The ceremony is 
not approved of by orthodox Jews. 

Sheelah's Day. The Irish celebrate the 18th of March, the 
daj^ after St. Patrick's, under this name. Who Sheelah was is 
uncertain. Some assert that she was Patrick's wife, others 
that she was Patrick's mother, but "all agree," says Hone, "that 
her immortal memory is to be maintained by potations of 
whiske}^. The shamrock worn on St. Patrick's Day should be 
worn also on Sheelah's Day, and on the latter night be drowned 
in the last glass. Yet it frequently happens that the shamrock 
is flooded in the last glass of St. Patrick's Day, and another last 
glass or two, or more, on the same night deluges the over-sod- 
den trefoil. This is not ' quite correct,' but it is endeavored to 
be remedied the next morning ,by the display of a fresh sham- 
rock, which is steeped at night in honor of ' Sheelah' with equal 
devotedness." (Every Day Book, vol. ii. p. 387.) 

Shorne, Master John. A famous personage of the thir- 
teenth century, who was rector of North Marston and achieved 
so great a reputation for sanctity as to overshadow in the popu- 
lar mind many duly canonized saints. It is reported of him 
that he conjured the devil into his boot and kept him there, 
allowing him to emerge only at intervals as a sort of diabolical 
jack-in-the-box. At death Master Shorne's body was enclosed 
in a shrine which became a favorite object of pilgrimage until 
the Eeformation. His claims seem to have been endorsed by 
the local clergy, for Fox tells us in his Martyrology that re- 
pentant heretics were sometimes compelled to make pilgrim- 
ages " some to the Eood at Wendover, some to Sir John Schorn." 
A Protestant ballad has these lines : 



884 CURIOSITIES OF 

To Maister John Schorn, that blessed man born, 

For the ague to him we apply, 
Which jugeleth with a boot, I beshrew his herte-rote 

That will trust him, an it be I. 

Near North Marston Church there is still extant a well, known 
as Master John Shorne's well, whose waters were in Catholic 
times believed to have great curative powers over the ague and 
kindred diseases. Its reputation is now entirely gone. The 
body and the shrine of John Shorne were destroyed at the Eefor- 
mation, but there is preserved an ancient screen in the church 
of Grateley in Norfolk, bearing a representation of the pseudo- 
saint with Satan peeping out of the top of a boot in his left 
hand. 

Shrove Tuesday, known in Scotland as Fastens-Een. 

(Fr. Mardi-Gras.) The Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, hence 
the last day previous to Lent, and in Catholic Europe the con- 
cluding and culminating day of the Carnival festivities. In 
England it was a chosen holiday for the apprentices and working 
classes generally. Yet the very title Shrove Tuesday indicates 
a penitential date when it was the custom of the faithful to 
apply to the priest to shrive or absolve them in the confessional 
before entering on the holy Lenten season of fasting and prayer. 
That none might plead forgetfulness of this duty, the great bell 
was rung at an early hour in every parish, and in after-times 
this ringing was still kept up in some places, though the cause 
of it ceased with the Eeformation, when it became merged into 
the Pancake Bell. After confession the people were allowed to 
indulge in merrymaking, which in the later days of Catholicism 
and the earlier ones of Protestantism degenerated into unbounded 
license. 

The association of pancakes with Shrovetide is an ancient 
one. The most plausible explanation is that offered by a Catho- 
lic ecclesiastic in Notes and Queries^ Eighth Series, vol. i. : " When 
Lent was kept by a strict abstinence from meat all through the 
forty days, it was customary to use up all the dripping and lard 
in the making of pancakes. To consume all, it was usual to call 
in the apprentice-boys and others about the house, and they were 
summoned by a bell, which was naturally called pancake bell." 
Eventually the functions of the pancake-bell and of the shriving- 
bell were combined, and, as the pancake-bell, the church signal 
survived the Eeformation. 

John Taylor the Water Poet in his " Jack-a-Lent" {Works, 
1630, vol. i. p. 115) attacks this and other Shrovetide customs 
extant in his day with great vigor: 

" Always before Lent there comes waddling a fat, grosse 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 885 

groome, called Shrove Tuesday^ one whose manners show he is 
better fed than taught, and indeed he is the only monster for 
feeding amongst all the dayes of the yeere, for he devoures more 
flesh in fourteene houres than this old kingdom doth (or at least 




Shbove Tuesday preparing to do battle with Lent. 

should doe) in sixe weekes after. Such boyling and broyling, 
such roasting and toasting, such stewing and brewing, such bak- 
ing, frying, mincing, cutting, carving, devouring, and gorbellied 
gurmondizing, that a man would thinke people did take in two 
months' provision at once. Moreover it is a goodly sight to see 
how the cookes in great men's kitchins doe frye in their master's 
suet, that if ever a cooke be worth the eating, it is when Shrove 
Tuesday is in towne, for he is so stued and larded, basted, and 
almost over-roasted, that a man may eate every bit of him and 
never take a surfet. In a word, they are that day extreme 
cholcrike, and too hot for any man to meddle with, being mon- 
archs of the marrow-bones, marquesses of the mutton, lords high 
regents of the spit and kettle, barons of the gridiron, and sole 
commanders of the frying-pan. And all this hurly-burly is for 
no other purpose than to stop the mouth of the land-wheale, 
Shrove- Tuesday^ at whose entrance in the morning all the whole 
kingdom e is in quiet, but by the time the clocke strikes eleven — 
which, by the help of a knavish sexton, is commonly before nine, 
— then there is a bell rung called the Pancake-Bell^ the sound 
whereof makes thousands of people distracted and forgetful 
either of manners or humanitie. Then there is a thing cal'd 



886 CURIOSITIES OF 

wbeat'n flowre, which the sulphory, necromanticke cookes doe 
mingle with water, eggs, spice, and other tragicall, magical! in- 
chantments, and then they put it little by little into a frying-pan 
of boyling suet, where it makes a confused dismal hissing — like 
the Lernean snakes in the reeds of Acheron, Stix, or Phlegeton 
— until at last by the skill of the cooke it is transformed into the 
forme of a flap-jack^ which in our translation is call'd a pancake^ 
which ominous incantation the ignorant people doe devoure very 
greedily— having for the most part well dined before — but they 
have no sooner swallowed that sweet candied baite, but straight 
their wits forsake them, and they runne starke mad, assembling 
in routs and throngs numberlesse of ungovernable numbers, with 
uncivil civil commotions." 

In spite of Taylor and other assailants, the pancake on Shrove 
Tuesday and even the pancake-bell still survive in England, 
though the latter has only local avatars. In some places it is 
known as Fritters-bell or Pan burn-bell. Jingling rhymes in con- 
nection with this custom are still current among the peasantry 
of Northamptonshire. The following are the most current : 

Pancakes and fritters, 

Says the bells of St. JPeter's. 

Where must we fry 'em ? 

Says the bells of Cold Higham. 

In yonder land thurrow [furrow], 

Says the bells of Wellingborough. 

You owe me a shilling, 

Says the bells of Great Billing. 

When will you pay me ? 

Says the bells at Middleton Cheney. 

When I am able, 

Says the bells at Dunstable. 

That will never be, 

Says the bells of Coventry. 

Oh, yes, it will, 

Says Northampton Great Bell. 

White bread and sop, 

Says the bells at Kingsthrop. 

Trundle a lantern, 

Says the bells at Northampton. 

That the bells of the churches of Northampton used also to 
be rung on this day may be inferred from the following similar 
doggerel : 

Koast beef and marshmallows, 

Says the bells of All Hallow's. 

Pancakes and fritters, 

Says the bells of St. Peter's. 

Eoast beef and boil'd, 

Says the bells of St. Giles'. 



Y. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 887 

Poker and tongs, 
Says the bells of St. John's. 
Shovels, tongs, and poker, 
Says the bells of St. Pulchre's. 
(Baker: Northampton Words and Phrases^ vol. ii. p. 92.) 



At Apsley Old Hall in Nottinghamshire, butter and lard, fire 
and frying-pans, were formerly provided for all the poor families 
of Wollaston, Trowell, and Cossall who chose to come and eat 
their pancakes at this mansion. The only conditions attached 
to the feast were that no quarrelling should take place, and that 
each wife and mother should fry for her own family, and that 
when the cake needed turning in the pan the act should be per- 
formed by tossing it in the air and catching it again in the pan 
with the uncooked side downward. And many were the roars 
of laughter which took place among the merry groups in the 
kitchen at the mishaps which occurred in the performance of 
this feat, in which his Honor and Madam joined. 

In addition to the pancakes, every man was allowed a quart 
of good ale, every woman a pint, and every child a gill. .(Sutton : 
Nottingham Date Book, 1852, p. 75.) 

The children of Berkshire have still their rhymes which they 
sing on this day and receive their accustomed perquisites. At 
Purley they say, — 

Knick-knock, pan's hot, 

I'm come a-shroving; 
Bit of bread and a bit of cheese, 

That's better than nothing. 
Last year's flour's dear, 
That's what makes poor Purley children come shroving here. 

Hip, hip, hurrah ! l 
Up with the pitcher and down with the pan, 
Give me a penny and I'll be gone. 

In Oxfordshire similar rhymes are sung : 

Knick, knock, the pan's hot. 
And we be come a-shroving : 
A bit of bread, a bit of cheese, 
A bit of barley dompling. 
That's better than nothing. 
Open the door and let us in. 

These rhymes have many variants, which may be heard in all 
the southern and midland counties. In Dorsetshire and Wilt- 
shire the children have unpleasant ways of manifesting their 
displeasure if the accustomed gift be withheld. Laying in a 
stock of bits of broken glass, crockery, and other rubbish, and 
with a captain at their head, they go round in })artios from 



888 CURIOSITIES OF 

house to house. The captain knocks at the door, and when it is 
opened sings this truculent rhyme : 

I'm come a-shroving 

For a piece of pancake, 

Or a piece of bacon, 

Or a little truckle cheese, 

Of your own making. 

If you give me a little I ask you no more ; 

If you don't give me nothing I'll rattle your door. 

If the request be denied, the captain gives a signal, and the 
door is straightway bombarded with the mutilated remains of 
plates, mugs, jugs, and basins. The practice is known as Lent 
Crocking. 

Before the pancakes were eaten there was always a great 
deal of contention among the revellers to see which could most 
adroitly toss them in the pan. Hone tells us that it was cus- 
tomary to present the greatest slut or lie-abed in the party 
" with the first pancake, which commonly falls to the dog's 
share at last, for no one will own it their due." Hence Tusser's 
allusion, 

Maids, fritters and pancakes enough see you make ; 
Let Slut have one pancake, for company's sake. 

{Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, 1620.) 

In parts of Lancashire and Cheshire the tossing of pancakes 
with its ancient accompaniments is still a source of Shrovetide 
mirth. In some places fritters are substituted. 

It is the day whereon both rich and poor 
Are chiefly feasted on the self-same dish ; 
When every paunch, till it can hold no more, 
Is fritter fill'd, as well as heart can wish ; 
And every man and maide doe take their turne. 
And tosse their pancakes up for feare they burne. 
And all the kitchen doth with laughter sound, 
To see the pancakes fall upon the ground. 

[PasquiVs Palinodia. Harland and Wilkinson, 

Lancashire Folk Lore, 1867, p. 218.) 

An interesting survival of "tossing the pancake" exists at 
Westminster School, and is accompanied with several quaint 
observances. The cook, bearing a frying-pan with a pancake, 
is conducted by a verger carrying the silver mace from the col- 
lege kitchen to the great school-room, where all the boyS' are 
assembled. The cook tries to toss the pancake over an iron 
bar which runs across the school-room from one wall to another. 
If the pancake goes clear over, the boys make a rash and try 
to catch it whole. The boy who gets it whole receives a guinea 
from the dean on showing it in an unbroken condition. The 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 889 

cook also receives ten shillings if he does his part properly. 
Nowadays, only so many boys join in the struggle for the pan- 
cake as there are forms in the school. Each form names a repre- 
sentative. Formerly the whole school made a rush, which was 
rather a dangerous sport, and very wisely the number of com- 
petitors for the prize has been limited. 

In 1864, the cook, who had failed for several years to elevate 
the pancake right over the bar, so exasperated the boys by again 
depriving them of their fun — for there was no scramble if the 
pancake did not go over the bar — that they hurled at his head 
a shower of books, dictionaries, as being heaviest, by preference. 
He retahated by flinging his frying-pan into the midst of the 
boys, and, in fact, there was a pretty quarrel, which was eventu- 
ally adjusted by the dean. 

At Charterhouse, Shrove Tuesday, as at Westminster, brings 
its annual excitement in the shape of an institution known as 
the " lemon fight." Each boy at dinner is provided with half a 
lemon, wherewith to flavor the customarj^ pancake ; but it is a 
point of honor not to use the lemon for this very ordinary pur- 
pose, but to save it up for the spirited warfare which follows. 
" Gown Boys" range themselves against " The Eest," and each 
side pelts the other with vigor and persistency. 

But fiercer sports than these were known to the Shrove Tues- 
day of the past. The underlying instinct of brutality in the 
Anglo-Saxon seems to have found free vent at this time, for the 
inhuman sports of cock-fighting and throwing at cocks were 
well-nigh universal. School-boys were allowed to bring cocks to 
school with them, and masters and scholars alike forgot the rod 
and books and became eager spectators of the cruel sport. Cock- 
fighting was countenanced in many of the schools of Scotland as 
late as the beginning of this century, and the teachers enjoyed 
the privilege of claiming the runaway cocks, called fugees, as 
their perquisites. 

But among the masses no other diversion could vie with the 
allurements of throwing at cocks. Fortunately this barbarous 
pastime was never indulged in at any other time of the year, and 
finally was suppressed altogether early in the nineteenth century. 
Some say that the custom took its rise from St. Peter's memora- 
ble experience when he denied the Saviour. Sir Charles Scdley, 
in the Monthly Miscellany for January, 1692, has this couplet : 

May'st thou be punished for St. Peter's crime. 
And on Shrove Tuesday perish in thy prime. 

Others assert that it must have originated at the time of 
Henr}^ the Fifth's victories over the French, the cocks being 
symbolical of the conquered Gauls. In Blenheim Castle there is 



890 CURIOSITIES OF 

a curious carving in stone over one of the portals representing 
a lion tearing a cock to pieces. 

However, an explanation given in The British Apollo for 1708 
seems the most rational of all, particularly as cock-throwing is 
known to have been practised both in England and in France 
long before the battle of Agincourt. This authority says that in 



I 




Cock-Throwing: The Triumph of the Victor. 

the days of Danish oppression the people of a certain city had 
formed a plan to massacre their tyrants in the early morning of 
Shrove Tuesday, but the sleeping Danes were aroused by the 
crowing of the cocks and defeated the plot, wherefore revenge 
was taken on the fowls every Shrove Tuesday. 

Hogarth gives a graphic picture of cock-throwing in his 
" Four Stages of Cruelty." The animals were carefully trained 
by their owners for weeks beforehand, sticks and other missiles 
being thrown at them untiringly until they acquired skill in 
dodging. In the game the cocks were tied to a stake in an open 
space, the throwers standing about twenty-two yards distant; 
twopence procured the privilege of three shies, and whoever 
knocked the cock down and caught him before recovery won the 
bird as a prize. The feat being difficult to accomplish, the 
owners sometimes made a great deal of money. 

A satirical old song of 1679 thus tells the story of the " Shrove- 
tide Martyr :" 

Cock-a-doodle-doe, 'tis the bravest game, 

Take a cock from his dame 
And bind him to a stake ; 

How he struts, how he throwes, 

How he swaggers, how he crowes, 
As if the day newly brake. 

How his mistress cackles 
Thus to find him in shackles, 

And tied to a packe-thread garter. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 891 

Oh, the beares and the bulls 
Are but corpulent gulls 

To the valiant Shrovetide Martyr. 

Hens were also used for this purpose. The Gentleman's 
Magazine for 1749 tells of a hen that spoke and delivered an 
excellent sermon (which is given in full) just before she met her 
death in this way. Threshing the fat hen was another custom 
akin to this, and probably derived from it, but with a better 
element of sport, though scarcely less cruelty. A hen was tied 
upon the back of one of the men, who also wore a string of horse- 
bells, while the others were blindfolded and armed with boughs, 
with which they tried to hit the hen, being guided by the sound 
of the bells. Naturally they often hit the man who carried the 
hen, and naturally, too, they often hit one another. The hen was 
afterwards boiled with bacon and eaten with pancakes : 

Come, go to the barn now, my jolly ploughmen, 
Blindfolded, and speedily thresh the fat hen ; 
And if you can kill her, then give her thy men, 
And go ye on fritters and pancakes dine then. 

(TussER : Five Hundred Points of Husbandry.) 

It was customary in Cornwall to take any hen which had not 
laid eggs before Shrove Tuesday and lay it on a barn floor to be 
thrashed to death. A man hit at her with a flail; and if he suc- 
ceeded in killing her therewith he got her for his pains. 

Hone, writing in 1820, speaks of the custom of throwing at 
cocks as still existing in some remote districts of England. At 
present it has only phantom reminiscences, as at Norwich, where 
the bakers exhibit at Shrovetide a small currant-loaf called a 
coquille, which the boys also cry in the streets. A notice at the 
shops runs as follows: "Hot coquilles on Tuesday morning at 
eight o'clock, and in the afternoon at four o'clock." Possibly 
the word is derived from its shell-like shape (Fr. coquille, " a 
shell"), but more probably it may be connected with cockerel or 
cock, and is a descendant from the old cock-throwing days. A 
more evident survival is in Wales, where it is still the custom to 
make thin lead figures of birds and animals. Whatever the 
shape, these are known as birds. They are set up on Shrove 
Tuesday, and boys are invited to throw chunks of lead at them. 
If the "bird" be knocked down it becomes the property of the 
thrower, but every chunk of lead that misses its aim is claimed 
by the owner of the " bird." 

Foot-ball was one of the chief pastimes of Shrovetide in old 
England and Scotland, and it still has many local survivals. At 
Alnwick the contest used to take place in the street, but the 
Duke of Northumberland instituted an annual match which now 



892 CURIOSITIES OF 

takes place in "the Pasture" every Shrove Tuesday between 
the two parishes of St. Michael and St. Paul. The committee 
receives the ball at the barbican of the castle from the porter, 
and marches to the field headed by the duke's piper. After the 
contest a fierce struggle takes place for the possession of the ball. 
At Chester-le-Street the game retains possession of the street, 
all the windows being carefully barricaded. A burn lies in the 
course of the players, who have a fine scrimmage in the waters. 
At Dorking also the street is the scene of the game. A collec- 
tion is made during the morning throughout the streets, nominally 
to defray the cost of damages. The foot-ballers first parade the 
streets clad in grotesque costumes and attended by bands of 
music. The fooL-ball is kicked ofi" in the centre of the High 
Street at two o'clock, and all who wish join in the game. The 
play is furious, and the ball is kicked everywhere, sometimes 
reaching the fields at the outskirts of the town. During four 
hours the contest lasts, and towards the end of the struggle 
there are much excitement and vigorous kicking, extremely dan- 
gerous to the limbs of the competitors. 

In Scotland the streets of Duns are enlivened by a game of 
hand-ball on Fastens-Een. The ball is started in state by the 
lord of the manor. The goals are the kirk and the mill. 

Nowhere was Shrovetide foot-ball carried to greater excesses 
than in mediaeval Florence. Early in the morning the young 
Florentines of the better classes disguised themselves, and, form- 
ing parties, set out to scour the city. Each party was provided 
wdth a large foot-ball, and every individual was armed with a 
mop well bedaubed with soot, grease, pitch, and other such 
matter. The ball was kicked through the streets ; if a shop 
happened to be open, in it bounded, and the players after it, 
upsetting everything. A like fate befell such stalls as chanced 
to stand in their way. The passengers, too, were hunted, even 
into the churches, and belabored with mops ; for these subjects 
of Momus considered it high treason to their king for any one 
to pursue his vocations on such a day. When two parties en- 
countered, a battle with mops ensued, which frequently warmed 
into a real fight. Indeed, the day seldom passed without several 
serious affrays. 

Perhaps the most singular of all Shrovetide ceremonies was 
one that used to be celebrated yearly in the now demolished 
cathedral of St. Lambert at Liege. It seems that at some 
unknown period the unlucky peasants of Nomale, in the Hes- 
baye, had ventured to take liberties with the geese belonging to 
the canons of St. Lambert, and, what was worse, had contrived 
to be found out. In consequence thereof, they were compelled 
to do penance every Shrovetide as follows. Early that morning 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 893 

all the villagers who were not bedridden gathered on the village 
green. Having picked out the most repulsive-looking old woman 
among them, they dressed her with appropriate absurdities and 
stuck a live goose under her arm. Then, forming in procession, 
they posted the hag in front, and, cackling and hissing the while 
like so many lunatics, they marched to the cathedral, where the 
canons awaited them. The villagers formed round the church, 
while the canons stood in a group in the centre. Up to this 
group went the old woman and presented her goose with an 
appropriate speech ; then, hobbhng from one churchman to an- 
other, she bestowed a hideous grimace upon each. "And," adds 
the annalist, "when she happened to repeat the same gesture 
twnce over, the canons, who were connoisseurs in that kind of 
thing, made her begin again." 

Sicilian Vespers. The name given to a sanguinary massa- 
cre of the French, who under Prince Charles of Anjou were 
then masters of Sicily, begun at Palermo on Easter Monday, 
March 30, 1282. Charles's rule was tyrannous and galling. 
Obnoxious to the Sicilians from his nation, the people had as 
well to bear the presence of a licentious and brutal alien sol- 
diery, to whom nothing was sacred. Under such oppression, 
it was little wonder that the hot fire of Italian wrath should 
be smouldering, and waiting but for some slight fanning to leap 
into devastating flame. The occasion arrived. On Easter Mon- 
day a procession of the people of Palermo was formed to attend 
vespers at the church of the Holy Ghost, just outside the walls. 
The French rulers made this a pretext for searching for arras. 
To a brutal, licentious soldiery this supplied an opportunity for 
offering gross insults to the females, one of whom was a young 
married lady of great beauty and position. Her screams aroused 
the multitude ; the spark was laid to the train ; and, led by the 
lady's father and husband, the people rose in tumult. Arms 
were seized, and an indiscriminate slaughter of all the French 
in the city was the result. 

This was but the alarm-note for a general rising. In town 
after town massacres took place, until Messina, the last strong- 
hold of the French, fell into native hands. Every person of 
French blood was massacred with relentless fury. Even Chris- 
tian burial wslh denied them, but pits were afterwards dug to 
receive their despised remains; and tradition still points out a 
column surmounted by an iron cross, raised by compas8ij[)nate 
piety in one of those spots, probably long after the perpetration 
of the deed of vengeance. Tradition, moreover, relates that 
the sound of a word, like the Shibboleth of the Hebrews, was 
the test by which the French were distinguished in the massa- 



894 CURIOSITIES OF 

ere, and that if there were found a suspicious or unknown per- 
son, he was compelled, with a sword to his throat, to pronounce 
the word ciceri^ and the slightest foreign accent was the signal 
for his death. Forgetful of their own character, and as if 
stricken by fate, the gallant warriors of France neither fled, nor 
united, nor defended themselves ; they unsheathed their swords 
and presented them to their assailants, imploring, as if in emu- 
lation of each other, to be the first to die ; of one common sol- 
dier only is it recorded that, having concealed himself behind a 
wainscot, and being dislodged at the sword's point, he resolved 
not to die unavenged, and, springing with a wild cry upon the 
ranks of his enemies, slew three of them before he himself 
perished. The insurgents broke into the convents of the Minor- 
ites and Preaching Friars and slaughtered all the monks whom 
they recognized as French. Even the altars afforded no protec- 
tion ; tears and prayers were alike unheeded ; neither old men, 
women, nor infants were spared ; and, as a last refinement of 
cruelty, Sicilian wives who were pregnant by French husbands 
were ripped open and the fruit of the mingled blood of the 
oppressors and the oppressed was dashed against the stones. 

Simeon, a prophet mentioned in the New Testament. Ac- 
cording to Luke ii. 25-35, he was enlightened by the Spirit to 
appear at the temple when Christ was presented. For the 
Holy Ghost had revealed to him that he should not see death 
before he had seen the Lord's Christ. " And when the parents 
brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the 
law, then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and 
said. Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, accord- 
ing to thy word : for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which 
thou hast prepared before the face of all people ; a light to 
lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel." The 
feast of Candlemas (^. v.) is sometimes known as Festa Simeonis, 
and in the Greek Church, especially, Simeon's words are the 
key-note of the celebration. Tradition has enlarged upon the 
Biblical narrative. According to the legend, Simeon was nearly 
three hundred years old at the time of the Presentation, When 
Ptolemy Philadelphus wanted a Greek version of the Hebrew 
Scriptures for the library at Alexandria, about 260 B.C., he sent 
to Eleazar at Jerusalem for scribes. Among those who under- 
took the work was Simeon, and he translated the book of Isaiah. 
When he reached the prophecy, " Behold, a virgin shall conceive, 
and bear a son," he was afraid that it might cause his rehgion 
to be looked upon as foolish by the Greeks, and so rendered the 
passage by using a Greek word meaning simply " young woman." 
Then an angel came and erased the word and put down the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. ' 895 

proper one, and twice repeated the alteration. After this Sim- 
eon had a vision and received a promise that he " should not see 
death before he had seen the Lord's Christ :" so he lived on, and 
was at the temple on the day when the Yirgin came to present 
the Child, and, embracing him, gave his prophecy. 

St. G-regory of Tours says that Simeon was buried on Mount 
Olivet. In the sixth century Justin the Younger translated his 
relics to Constantinople. Portions were given to Charlemagne, 
and were by him placed at Aix, where the arm on which the 
infant Saviour rested when the " Nunc Dimittis" was first said 
is shown. The head is in the Jesuit College at Brussels. Arms 
or parts of arms are shown at Perigueux, Palermo, and Harz- 
burg, and two entire bodies are extant, one at Andechs, in 
Bavaria, the other at Zara, in Dalmatia. 

Sin- Eater. A functionary who, within the memory of living 
men, officiated at funerals in Wales. A relative — usually a 
woman — would place a quantity of bread and cheese and beer 
on the bosom of the corpse. Then the Sin-Eater would be sum- 
moned to consume them. It was believed that thus he appro- 
priated to himself the delinquencies symbolized by the viands 
and prevented them from disturbing the rest of the sinner. 

Snapdragon, or Flapdragon. A favorite Christmas pastime 
in old England, little known outside of that countrj^, and now 
obsolescent even there. Some small inflammable body is set on 
fire in a glass of spirits, and the courage of the players is tested 
by their willingness to snatch it out with the fingers and put 
it blazing into the mouth. Eaisins in brandy were the com- 
monest snapdragons. They might be safely seized by a quick 
motion, put in the mouth, and swallowed after the flames were 
extinguished by closing the lips. A correspondent of JSfotes and 
Queries, Second Series, vol. vii. p. 277, suggests as a derivation 
the German schiiapps, " spirit," and drache. " dragon," and deems 
it equivalent to " spirit-fire." 

Shakespeare alludes to the sport under the name of flap- 
dragon : 

And drinks off candles' ends for flapdragons. 

[Second Part of Henry 7F., Act ii. Sc. 4.) 
Thou art easier swallowed than a flapdragon. 

{Lovers Lahor^s Lost, Act v. Sc. 1.) 

Stang, Riding the. A stang, or cowl-staff, is nothing more 
nor less than a stout pole used in the southern counties of Eng- 
land for carrying a cowl or water-vessel, which is suspended 
from the middle, while each end of the stang rests on the 
shoulders of a carrier. Hence Riding the Stang is the same 



896 CURIOSITIES OF 

as the American Eiding a Eail. In the eighteenth century it 
was one of the customary New Year features of rural England. 
The method is thus described in the Gentleman's Magazine for 
1791, p. 1169: "Early on the morning of the first of January 
the EsBx Populi assemble together, carrying stangs and baskets. 
Any inhabitant, stranger, or whoever joins not this ruffian 
tribe in sacrificing to their favorite saint-day, if unfortunate 
enough to be met by any of the band, is immediately mounted 
across the stang (if a woman, she is basketed), and carried shoul- 
der high to the nearest public-house, where the payment of six- 
pence liberates the prisoner." 

In Yorkshire and some other counties a ceremony called 
Eiding the Stang still survives among the lower orders as a 
method of vicarious punishment for any frailty on the part of 
man or wife. Some " good-natured friend" is selected ; he be- 
strides the stang, and is borne through the streets in the dusk of 
the evening on the shoulders of two men, preceded by another 
carrying a lantern. At every fifty yards or so the procession 
makes a halt, and the rider declaims these verses, mutatis mutandi 
to suit the occasion : 

Good neighbors attend while I you harangue. 

'Tis neither for your sake nor my sake 

That I ride the stang, 

But it is for the wife of John Smith 

That I ride the stang. 

Then all the mob hurrahs. The procession winds up before 
the house of the sinner, where, after a chorus of hoots and jeers, 
it disperses. Sometimes the vocal discord is supplemented by an 
instrumental pandemonium, in which pots, pans, and kettles are 
utilized to assail the offender with what is known as rough music 
(^. V. See also Charivari). 

Stephen, St. (Fr. Etienne ; Ger. Stefan.) The protomartyr, 
or first Christian martyr, patron of horses. He is commemorated 
on December 26. The New Testament (Acts vii.) tells the story 
of his death by stoning at the hands of the Jewish people just 
outside of the gate at Jerusalem now called by his, name. A 
legend relates that nothing was known of the martyr's relics 
until four hundred years later, when Gamaliel appeared in a 
vision to Lucian, a priest living in Jerusalem, and revealed to 
him that they had been buried in Gamaliel's own garden with 
those of Nicodemus and other holy men. The relics were found 
December 26, 417. Their genuineness was attested by many 
miracles, and they were placed in the church of Sion at Jeru- 
salem. They were carried from Jerusalem to Constantinople by 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 897 

Theodosius II. about 439, and obtained for Eome more than a 
century later by the legates of Pope Pelagius. They now lie in 
the church of St. Lawrence, side by side with the bones of the 
latter saint, who, it is said, courteously moved to the left of his 
sarcophagus, thus giving the place of honor on the right to St. 
Stephen. For this act of politeness Lawrence has been dubbed 
by the Eoman populace " II Cortese Spagnuolo" (" The Courteoiis 
Spaniard"). There is a curious and anachronistic legend giving 
an account of the translation of St. Stephen's remains which has 
been painted in the newly restored church of St. Lawrence Out- 
side the Walls in Eome. According to this story, the Empress 
Eudoxia, wife of Valentinian III., Emperor of Eome, had been 
invited to Constantinople by her father, Theodosius II., that she 
might be delivered, by touching the relics of St. Stephen, from 
the torments of a devil who afflicted her. But the demon gave 
her to understand that she could never be cured unless the saint 
himself came to Eome. It was arranged, therefore, that the 
relics of St. Lawrence should be given in exchange for those of 
St. Stephen, and on the latter reaching Eome the Empress was 
healed. But when the Greek emissaries tried to remove St. Law- 
rence they fell down as dead, and, though restored at the moment 
by the prayer of Pope Pelagius, they died within ten days. All 
the Eomans who had counselled the exchange were struck with 
madness, but were healed at the joint intercession of the two 
martyrs when laid side by side in the marble sarcophagus where 
they still repose. The legend would have been more credible but 
for the facts that Theodosius II. died in 450 and that Pope Pela- 
gius reigned from 555 to 560. St. Stephen is represented as 
young and beardless, in the dress of a deacon. His special 
attributes are the stones with which he was murdered. 

A bone of the saint is shown at Longpont, near Paris, others 
at Metz, at St. Etienne in Paris, at St. Mark's in Venice, and in 
the island of Minorca. Stones said to be reddened with the blood 
of the martyr are preserved at Metz and at Ancona. 

St. Stephen's being the day after Christmas, it was formerly 
the custom for the poor to go round begging the broken victuals 
left over from the holiday feast. Hence perhaps arose the prac- 
tice in many English parishes of distributing biead and cheese 
and other doles to the poor. This meal was known as St. 
Stephen's Breakfast. Southey in his " Common-Place Book" 
mentions that the three vicars of Bampton used in his time to 
give beef and beer on the morning of St. Stephen's Day to those 
who chose to partake of it. Bread and cheese and ale was the 
offering made by the rector of the parish of Drayton-Beauchamp. 
Here the usage gave rise to so much rioting that it was discon- 
tinued, and an annual sum was distributed instead in proportion 

67 



898 CURIOSITIES OF 

to the number of claimants. About the year 1827, however, the 
compromise itself was dropped. 

According to the Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1811, the 
inhabitants of the North Eiding of Yorkshire celebrated the 
feast of St. Stephen by making large goose pies, "all of which 
they distribute among their needy neighbors except one, which 
is carefully laid up and not tasted till Candlemas." On this day 
also sword-dances were performed in the same locality. (See 
Sword-Dance.) 

But in old England St. Stephen's Day is chiefly celebrated 
under the name of Boxing Day, — not for pugilistic reasons, but 
because on that day it was the custom for persons in the humbler 
walks of life to go the rounds with a Christmas-box and solicit 
pecuniary gifts from patrons and employers. Hence the word 
Christmas-box came eventually to signify gifts made at this 
holiday season by superiors to inferiors, and retained this meaning 
even after the boxes themselves had been abolished. These boxes 
were of heathen origin, and carry us back to the Eoman Paga- 
nalia, when earthen boxes in which money was slipped through 
a hole were hung around for contributions at these rural festivals. 

Aubrey in his " Wiltshire Collections" (1670, p. 45) describes a 
trouvaille of Eoman relics : " Among the rest was an earthen 
pot of the color of a crucible, and of the shape of a Prentice's 
Christmas-box, with a slit in it, containing about a quart, which 
was near full of money. This pot I gave to the Eepository of 
the Eoyal Society at Gresham College." 

The Church, which at first denounced these pagan institutions, 
finally ended l3y adopting them, if we are to believe Mr. John 
Dunton, the ingenious editor of " The Athenian Oracle" (1703, 
vol. i. p. 360), a periodical that was the first forerunner of the 
modern Notes and Queries. Here are his question and answer: 

" Q. From whence comes the custom of gathering of Christ- 
mas-box money ? And how long since ? 

"J.. Tt is as ancient as the word mass^ which the Eomish 
priests invented from the Latin word mitto^ to send, by putting 
the people in mind to send gifts, offerings, oblations ; to have 
masses said for everything almost, that no ship goes out to the 
Indies but the priests have a box in that ship, under the protec- 
tion of some saint. And for masses, as they cant, to be said for 
them to that saint, etc., the poor people must put in something 
into the priests' box, which is not to be opened till the ship 
return. Thus the mass at that time was Chrisfs-mass, and the 
box Chrisfs-mass-box, or money gathered against that time, that 
masses might be made by the priests to the saints, to forgive the 
people the debaucheries of that time ; and from this, servants 
had liberty to get box-money, so that they might be enabled to 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 899 

pay the priest for masses — because, Wo penny, no paternoster — for 
though the rich pay ten times more than they can expect, yet a 
priest will not say a mass or anything to the poor for nothing ; 
so charitable they generally are." 

Whatever their origin and evolution, there is no doubt that 
the Christmas-box was a recognized institution in the England 
of the seventeenth century. In the British Museum several 
specimens are preserved, — small and wide bottles of thin clay, 
from three to four inches in height, surmounted by imitation 
stoppers, covered with a green baize. On one side is a slit for 
the introduction of money. The box must be broken before the 
money can be extracted. Thus, Mason's " Handful of Essaies" 
(1621) says of a miser that, "like a swine, he never doth good 
till his death ; as an apprentice's box of earth apt is he to take 
all, but to restore none till he be broken." The same simile is 
used in Blaxton's " EngHsh Usurer" (1634) : 

Both witli the Christmas Box may well comply ; 
It nothing yields till broke, they till they die. 

At a dinner on St. Stephen's Day in the Inner Temple, among 
a great deal of dreary mummery and solemn tomfoolery was this 
" merry disport," which may or may not have been typical of the 
lawyers' practice in those days. When the company was seated 
at the chancellor's table " a huntsman cometh into the hall with 
a fox and a purse-net with a cat, both bound at the end of a staff, 
and with these nine or ten couple of hounds, with the blowing 
of hunting-horns. And the fox and cat are set upon by the 
hounds, and killed beneath the fire." There is a quatrain of an 
old spiritual song that probably refers to this ceremony : 

The hunter is Christ that hunts in haist. 

The hunds are Peter and Pawle, 
The paip is the fox, Eome is the Box 

That rubbis us on the gall. 

A curious superstition was formerly prevalent regarding St. 
Stephen's Day, — that horses should then, after being first well 
galloped, be copiously bled in order to insure them against dis- 
ease in the course of the following year. In Barnaby Googe's 
translation of Naogeorgus the following lines occur : 

Then foUoweth Saint Stephen's Day, whereon doth every man 
His horses jaunt and course abrode, as swiftly as he can. 
Until they doe extreemely sweate, and then they let them blood, 
For this being done upon this day, they say doth do them good, 
And keepes them from all maladies and sicknesse through the yeare, 
As if that Steven any time tooke charge of horses heare. 

The practice appears to be very ancient, and Douce supposes 
that it was introduced into England by the Danes. In one 



900 CURIOSITIES OF 

of the manuscripts of John Aubrey occurs the following record : 
" On St. Stephen's Day the farrier came constantly and blouded 
all our cart-horses." {Remains of Gentilisme, Lansdowne MSS., 
226.) Very possibly convenience and expediency combined on 
the occasion with superstition, for in " Tusser Redivivus," a work 
published in the middle of the last century, we find this state- 
ment : ''About Christmas is a very proper time to bleed horses 
in, for then they are commonly at house, then spring comes on, 
the sun being now coming back from the winter solstice, and 
there are three or four days of rest, and if it be upon St. 
Stephen's Day it is not the worse, seeing there are with it three 
days of rest, or at least two." 

But the custom may have reference to the fact that St. 
Stephen was the patron of horses. The Germans call his day 
der grosse Pferdstag. In Eome it was formerly the custom to 
celebrate it by physicking and bleeding the Pope's stud, for the 
sake of the blood, which was supposed to be a specific in many 
disorders. 

St. Stephen's Day was formerly called Straw Day in the south 
of France, because of the benediction of the straw which some 
rituals then appointed. In Denmark it is sometimes known as 
Second Christmas Day. (See also Wren, Hunting the.) 

Stone of Infamy. (It. Pietra d'Infamia.) In many Italian 
cities a stone so called, formerly used for the purpose of punish- 
ing bankrupts, is still extant. In Yenice it stands near St. 
Mark's Church, in Verona and in Florence it is placed in the old 
markets. On a certain day of the Carnival all traders who had 
failed during the preceding twelvemonth were led to this stone. 
Around them gathered a vast mob, the school-boys being accorded 
the foremost rank, as likely to learn from the ceremonial an 
important lesson in commercial morality. One by one the bank- 
rupts were placed on the centre of the stone to hear the reading 
of their balance-sheet and to endure as many reproaches as their 
creditors could cram into a limited time. When time was up, the 
presiding official touched his bell, and the storm of interjection 
was instantly hushed. Then the bankrupt was solemnly divested 
of a necessary portion of his dress, after which three stout 
public officers laid hold of his shoulders, and three others of his 
knees, and, raising him every time as high as they could, bumped 
him deliberately twelve times, "in honor of the twelve apostles," 
against the cold stone. An old writer states that the creditors 
crowed like cocks during the bumping, but that when it was 
over few of them entertained animosity against the bumpee. In 
proof whereof, he avers that not one of them could look at him 
with dry eyes as he sneaked through the crowd. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 901 

Stray Sale Day, or First Monday, in Texas. By an un- 
written law of Texas, the first Monday in every month is set 
apart as the day on which all the stray horses and cattle that 
have been duly " taken up," " posted," and " kept" shall be taken 
down to the public square in the capital of every county through- 
out the State, there to be auctioned off or exchanged. Early in 
the morning men begin coming into town, jogging along on 
horseback through the black mud, and leading strings of from 
two to ten ponies of all conceivable degrees of disreputableness 
of appearance. Not all of these are really strays. Most of 
them, indeed, are brought in for sale or for trade along with the 
strays. By eight o'clock the square presents a lively appear- 
ance. By ten o'clock the whole space is covered with a densely 
packed mass of struggling, squirming, kicking, fidgeting Texas 
ponies. A little after ten the auction begins, and continues until 
every horse has been disposed of. 

Not only is " first Monday" the day for stray sales and for 
general horse-trading, but it is also the day for getting and giving 
information about lost stock. But for it there would be far more 
stray stock in Texas than there is. It is wonderful to notice the 
degree of system which exists in regard to the matter. Every 
honest stock-man in Texas is a self-appointed committee of one 
to note any stray animals he may see, and to give accurate infor- 
mation concerning them whenever asked for it. Fences in Texas 
are rarely ever proof against the jumping or breaking force of 
the average Texas pony. When a pony gets out, he has all 
Texas to hide in, and the task of finding him would seem about 
as difficult as that of finding the proverbial needle in the pro- 
verbial haystack. He is almost sure to be found sooner or later, 
though, and " first Monday" is one of the principal devices used 
to aid in finding him. 

Sunday. The first day of the week, named after the sun, 
and therefore an evident relic of sun-worship. In French it is 
Dimanche, in Italian Domenica, both from Dominus, "the Lord." 
Christians, with the exception of the Seventh-Day Adventists, 
have substituted it as a day of rest and prayer in lieu of the 
Jewish Sabbath. 

According to the New Testament, the early Christians were 
in the habit of assembling in the evening of the first day of the 
week for worship. They met to break bread in remembrance of 
Jesus, because on that day he rose from the dead. But in the 
texts of the New Testament, as well as in the earliest ecclesias- 
tical history, we find nothing that goes to show that the early 
Christians had any idea of keeping a Sabbath or that on that 
day they discontinued their ordinary vocations. In thousands 



902 CURIOSITIES OF 

of instances it would have been impossible for the Christians of 
those days to rest on the first day of the week, inasmuch as they 
were the servants of Jewish or heathen masters, who would not 
have permitted to them a day of idleness for the sake of the 
Man of Nazareth. 

Irenseus is the first of the early fathers who speaks of cessa- 
tion from labor on Sunday. He says that reaping and gathering 
into barns are then forbidden. Tertullian (a.d. 202) also says, 
*' On the Lord's day of resurrection we ought to abstain from all 
habit and labor of anxiety, putting off even our business, lest we 
give place to the devil." But he also calls it a day " on which 
we allow ourselves to be joyous." A decree of Constantine com- 
manded that all business and employment except agriculture 
should cease on " the honored day of the sun." The Emperor 
Leo, in 469, included agriculture in the prohibition. 

During the Middle Ages Sunday grew into more and more 
importance as a holy day, deriving its sanction, however, not 
from the fourth commandment, but from the Church ordinances. 
It was on this account that the early Ee formers protested against 
it as against other Church feasts. Luther, though he allowed 
that the appointment of one day in the week for rest and for 
attending divine worship was salutary, added that " If anywhere 
this day is made holy for the mere day's sake, ... then I order 
you to dance on it, and feast on it, to do anything that shall 
remove this encroachment on Christian liberty." Calvin agreed 
with Luther. He conformed his practice to his precept. It is 
incidentally related that when John Knox once visited the 
Genevan Eeformer on Sunday he found him playing at bowls. 
Knox was not shocked. He was no more of a Sabbatarian than 
Calvin. But the English Eeformers retained the Catholic Sun- 
day, as they did the vestments and national hierarchy of the old 
Church, and indeed enforced it with a severity unknown to Eome. 

In all these controversies the word Sabbath as applied to Sun- 
day does not make its appearance until about the year 1573, in 
the second edition of Bullein's '' Dialogue against the Fever 
Pestilence," published at Frankfort. It holds up to admiration 
an ideal " Keepinge of the Saboth Day," but finds it necessary to 
explain that the Saboth " is the seventh daie, that is sondaie." 
And this is the manner in which Bullein (or possibly some inter- 
polator) describes the "keepinge of the Saboth" in his imaginary 
Utopia : " There were no people walking abroad in the service 
tyme ; no, not a Dogge or catte in the streate, neither any Tav- 
erne doore open that daie, nor wine bibbyng in them, but onely 
almose, fasting and praier." 

Bullein called his imaginary city Nodnol, an anagram of Lon- 
don. And in fact it was in London, the head-quarters of Puri- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 903 

tanism, that his ideal was first to be realized. The very adoption 
of the word Sabbath, which soon became general, showed which 
way the brain in the Roundhead was trending. If Sunday were 
to be treated as identical in all save its position in the week with 
the Jewish Sabbath, then the severest of the Old Testament 
ordinances would apply to the Christian holy day. So early as 
1580 the magistrates of London secured from Queen EHzabeth 
the prohibition of theatrical entertainments within the Hmits 
of the city on Sunday. The Puritan mode of Sundaj'-keeping 
already existed among the chosen few. " The Sabboth dale of 
some is well observed," says Stubbes, " namely, in hearing the 
blessed worde of God read, preached, and interpreted ; in private 
and publique praiers ; in reading of godly psalmes ; in celebrating 
the sacraments ; and in collecting for the poore and indigent, which 
are the true uses and endes whereto the Sabbaoth was ordained." 

Nor was the innovation at first unwelcome to the stricter 
English divines, who saw with alarm that Sunday after the 
morning services was entirely given up to out door games, to the 
brutallj' cruel sports of bull- and bear-baiting, to merry morris- 
dances, in which the performers were gayly decked and hung 
with jingling bells in different keys, as well as to coarse farces 
called interludes, which were played on stages under booths and 
sometimes in the churches. 

Unfortunately, in its austere reaction against this license and 
frivolity Puritanism pushed Sabbath-keeping to its extreme, 
reprobating even the most innocent and domestic recreations, 
and changing a day of rest and refreshment into one of alternate 
periods of application to religious devotion and of scrupulous 
vacuity. The theory of a Sunday-Sabbath, which from the first 
was not confined to the Puritans, permeated English and Ameri- 
can thought and life. But from that time forward the Puritans 
made rigid Sabbath-keeping the very mark and password of the 
faithful. From England the theory spread northward to Scot- 
land, where it found a congenial soil. 

In New England Puritanism reduced the ascetic Sunday to 
its logical absurdity. As the Jewish Sabbath was from sunset to 
sunset, so the New England Sunday began on Saturday after- 
noon. Everybody must cease from labor at three o'clock, and 
spend the rest of the day in such preparation for the morrow " as 
the ministers shall direct." All good people occupied some part 
of these hours in teaching their children the Shorter Catechism 
of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, — and not only their 
children, but their servants. One perplexed parson wrote back to 
England of the difficulty of getting servants who "enjoyed cate- 
chising and family duties," — "family duties" meaning prayers. 

Thus prepared, the Puritans awoke on Sabbath morning. The 



904 



CURIOSITIES OF 



Sabbath was a day of rest and religion. Whatever did not 
agree with these purposes of the daj' was an offence, punishable 
by law. In 1670 John Lewis and Sarah Chapman, lovers, were 
set on trial for " sitting together on the Lord's day under an 
apple-tree in Goodman Chapman's orchard." An old soldier in 
Dunstable for " netting a piece of old hat to put in his shoe," to 
ease a sore foot, was fined forty shillings. Captain Kemble, of 
Boston, sat two hours in the public stocks for his " lewd and un- 
seemly behavior" in kissing his wife on his own door-step, he 
having on a Lord's day morning returned from a three years' 
cruise. The New Haven Sabbath laws set forth that " Profana- 
tion of the Lord's day shall be punished by fine, imprisonment, 
or corporal punishment; and if proudly, and with a high head 
against the authority of God, with death." 

Eelics of the old "blue-iaw" legislation exist on the statute- 
books of nearl}^ all the States of the Union, but only as dead 
letters. The sternest magistrate would not dare to enforce them. 

Suttee. A voluntary death by fire once common among Hin- 
doos of both sexes. The 
earliest European travel- 
lers mentioned it as well- 
nigh universal in the parts 
of India they knew. Thus, 
Benjamin of Tudela ob- 
serves, " Some of the great 
of this country take a vow 
to burn themselves alive. 
When he declares his in- 
tention, all applaud him, 
and say, ' Happy shalt thou 
be, and it shall be well with 
thee.' " Other travellers of 
the same early date tell the 
same story, but those who 
visited the country later 
speak only of the widow's 
self-immolation on her hus- 
band's funeral pyre. It 
would appear that this hor- 
rible limitation of the rite 
was established between 
the twelfth and fifteenth 
centuries. When the Eng- 
lish acquired India they lor 
a long time refrained from any prohibition of the custom, on 




A Widow on the Funeral Pyee. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



905 



the ground that it would be an interference with the religious 
prejudices of the natives. In the early part of the nineteenth 
century, however, it was ordered that when a suttee was about 
to take place the official persons on the spot should inquire 
whether the act was voluntary on the part of the widow, and 
that they should attend at the funeral pyre and see that no force 
was used. This only increased the evil. It at once authorized 
suttees, and by requiring the ]3rcsence of the magistrate or his 
representatives gave the sacrifice a consequence which it had 
not previously enjoyed. As no European could witness such 
a scene without trying, by gentle means at least, to prevent it, 
unavailing interference gave the victim the air of a martyr, 
and natural vanity and pride were called in to the aid of super- 
stition. 



Swan-Upping, Swan-Hopping, or Swan-Marking. At 
a very early date it was a high privilege, granted only by the 
sovereign to certain companies and individuals, to keep and 
preserve swans on the English lakes and rivers. Each proprie- 
tor had his own peculiar swan-mark, which was cut in the skin 
or on the beak of the young bird with a sharp knife or other 
instrument. The marking was generally performed in the pres- 
ence of all the swan-herds 
on that stream, and on a 
particular day, of which 
all had notice. Cygnets re- 
ceived the mark found on 
the parent bird, but if the 
old swans had no mark the 
whole were seized for the 
king and marked accord- 
ingly. No swan -herd was 
allowed to affix a mark ex- 
cept in the presence of the 
king's swan-herd or of his 

deputy. The king's swan-herd kept a book of swan-marks, and 
no new marks were permitted to interfere with the old ones. 

The marking was usually attended with much festivity, and, 
though no longer obligatory, the Dyers' and Vintners' Compa- 
nies in the City of London, who have uninterruptedly enjoyed 
the privilege of keeping swans on the river Thames from Lon- 
don to some miles above Windsor, still keep up the old custom 
of going with their friends and acquaintances, accompanied by 
the royal swan-herds and assistants, on the first Monday in 
August in every year, for the purpose of catching and marking 
all the cygnets of the year, and also renewing any marks on the 






Swan-Upping. 



906 CURIOSITIES OF 

old birds that may have become obliterated. The struggles of 
the swans when caught by their pursuers, and the duckings 
that the men get in the contests, form amusing episodes. 

The practice of swan-upping still survives in Stratford-on- 
Avon, The Antiquarian for November, 1884, has this note : 
" The old custom of swan-upping was observed at Stratford-on- 
Avon in September last, and was attended by the mayor and a 
distinguished party of visitors from Clopton House. A fleet of 
about forty boats, including a few canoes, well manned and pro- 
vided with ropes and crooks, put off from the Clopton Bridge 
about half-past three o'clock in quest of the young birds. After 
an amusing chase up the river of from two to three miles, the 
cygnets were captured one by one, and subjected to the mark- 
ing process, which consists of punching a hole in the web of the 
foot, whilst to prevent the birds flying any considerable distance 
it was thought advisable to cut the pinions." 

Swastika, or Fylfot. (The first term comes from the San- 
skrit sv, "good," or "well," and asti, "to be," or "being;" the 
second is the Anglo-Saxon for " four-footed.") A species of pre- 
Christian cross of peculiar shape which is found widely dis- 
tributed throughout the globe. It is the oldest of all Aryan 
symbols. Other symbols which are found in archaeological in- 
vestigations, the straight line, the circle, the cross, the triangle, 
are simple forms easily made, and might have been invented and 
reinvented in every age of primitive man and in every quarter 
of the globe, each time being an independent invention, mean- 
ing much or little, and meaning different things among different 
peoples, or even at different times among the same people. But 
the Swastika was probably the first symbol to be made with a 
definite intention and a continuous or consecutive meaning, the 
knowledge of which passed from person to person, from tribe to 
tribe, from people to people, and from nation to nation, until, 
with possibly changed meanings, it has finally circled the globe. 

A description of some of these early crosses and the differences 
between them and the Swastika is interesting. The Latin cross 
is the one found on coins, medals, and ornaments anterior to 
the Christian era. It was on a cross of this shape that Christ 
is said to have been crucified, and thus it became accepted as 
the Christian cross. The Greek cross differs from the Latin 
cross in that the arms are of equal length. The St. Andrew's 
cross is the same as the Greek cross, but turned to stand on 
two legs instead of one. The crux ansata, according to Egyptian 
mythology, was the emblem of Ka. The other crosses, which 
are variations of these forms, with some modifications, are the 
Tau cross, the Monogram of Christ, the Maltese cross, and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 907 

the Celtic crosses. But of all these many forms of the cross 
the Swastika is the most aDcient. The bars of the normal 
Swastika are straight, of equal thickness throughout, and cross 
each other at right angles, making four arms of equal size, 
length, and style. The peculiarity of the Swastika and the 
form which makes it perfectly recognizable, because so different 
from any other cross, lies in the fact that all the ends of the 
bars are bent at right angles in the same direction, be it either 
to the right or to the left. There are several varieties of cross 
probably very nearly related to the Swastika, which have been 
found in almost every part of the globe. These consist in spiral 
forms of the turned ends. 

Archaeologists differ as to the origin and meaning of the 
Swastika. They believe it to have been the emblem of Zeus, 
of Baal, of the sun, of the sun-god, of Indra, the rain-god, of 
the sky, and finally the deity of all deities, the great God, the 
maker and ruler of the universe. 

The theory now most generally accepted is that the Swastika is 
a form of the wheel (q. v.) and a symbol of the solar motion. As 
Max Mtiller says, " it is an abbreviated emblem of the solar wheel 
with spokes in it, the tire and the movement being indicated by 
the crampons." On the bust of Apollo in the Kunsthistorisches 
Museum of Vienna there is a large and prominent Swastika, 
which goes far to show its solar significance. But in ancient 
usage the most important of its attributes seems to have been its 
character as a charm or amulet, as a sign of benediction, bless- 
ing, long Hfe, or good luck. This character has continued into 
modern times, and, while it is to-day recognized as a holy and 
sacred symbol by at least one Buddhistic religious sect, it is still 
used by the common people of India, China, and Japan, to whom 
it has been naturally handed down from their forefathers as a 
sign of long life and good fortune. It had great extension, 
having spread itself practically over the known world, largely, 
if not entirely, in prehistoric times. Many specimens of it were 
found in excavations on the site of ancient Troy, on the hill of 
Hissarlik. 

As it has also been found in North and South America, the 
Swastika furnishes almost conclusive evidence that the early- 
peoples of the Eastern hemisphere were in constant communica- 
tion with the early peoples of the Western. 

Swithin or Swithun, St., patron of Winchester, of which 
diocese he was bishop from 852 till his death, July 2, 862. He 
shared with St. Neot the glory of educating King Alfred, and 
was chancellor under Egbert and Ethelwolf. But at present 
his chief popular fame arises from the fact that he is a sort of 



908 CURIOSITIES OF 

Jupiter Pluvius in the Protestant calendar of England. The 
common belief is that according as it rains or shines on St. 
Swithin's Day — which is celebrated on July 15, the anniversary 
of the translation of his relics — the next forty days will be 
either rainy or bright : 

St. Swithin's Day, if thou dost rain, 
For forty days it will remain : 
St. Swithin's Day, if thou be fair, 
For forty days 'twill rain nae mair. 

This tradition is founded on a legend that, before dying, the 
humble-minded saint had begged to be interred in the open 
churchyard, and not in the chancel of the church, as was usual 
with bishops. Here he remained for over a century, when the 
monks, thinking it disgraceful that so great a saint should have 
so lowly a burial-place, resolved to move the body into the choir. 
The 15th of July was appointed for the purpose. But on that 
day a mighty rain-storm burst forth, and continued without in- 
termission for the next forty days. The monks took this as a 
sign of heavenly displeasure, and instead of removing the body 
they built a chapel over it where it lay. 

Unfortunately for the legend, however, it happens that the 
formal translation of the relies of St. S within from the grave 
in the churchyard to a magnificent shrine within the cathedral 
was in fact effected on July 15, 971, only one hundred and nine 
years after his death, without any meteorological interference. 
Many legends were set afloat at the time to prove that this 
was done by the saint's wishes as expressed in visions. A few 
years afterwards the church, which had originally been dedicated 
to the apostles Peter and Paul, changed these guardians for St. 
Swithin, who in turn had to yield to Henry YlII.'s substitution 
of the Holy Trinity. 

It may be added that Swithin was never regularly canonized 
by the Pope, — a practice not introduced until two hundred years 
after his translation, which is the only ceremony on which he 
rests his claim to the title. 

One of the earliest literary allusions to the saint's powers as 
a weather-prophet is in Ben Jonson's " Every Man out of his 
Humor," where Sordido, sarcastically critical of an almanac, 
cries, " 'Slid, stay, this is worse and worse. What says he of St. 
Swithin's ? Turn back, look : St. Swithin's, the xv day— variable 
weather, for the most part rain, good. For the most part rain ; 
why it should rain forty days after now, more or less ; it was a 
rule held afore I was able to hold a plough, and yet here are two 
days no rain ; ha! it makes me muse !" 

In " Poor Robin's Almanac" for 1697 are the following verses : 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 909 

In this month is St. S within 's Day, 
On which if that it rain, they say 
Full forty days after it will, 
Or more or less, some rain distil. 
This Swithin was a saint, I trow, 
And Winchester's hishop also, 
"Who in his time did many a feat, 
As Popish legends do repeat ; 
A woman, having broke her eggs, 
By stumbling at another's legs. 
For which she made a woful cry, 
St. Swithin chanced for to come by, 
Who made them all as sound or more 
Than ever that they were before. 
But whether this were so or no 
'Tis more than you or I do know ; 
Better it is to rise betime. 
And to make hay while sun doth shine. 
Than to believe in tales and lies 
Which idle monks and friars devise. 

The satirical Churchill also mentions the superstitious notions 
concerning rain on this day : 

July, to whom the dog-star in her train, 
St. James gives oisters, and St. Swithin rain. 

Hone's " Every Day Book" tells the story of an old lady who 
when St. Swithin's Day opened bright and fair expressed her 
belief in an approaching term of fine weather, but, a few drops 
of rain having fallen in the evening, changed her tune and an- 
nounced that the next six weeks would be wet. Her prediction 
failed, the weather having been i^markably fine. " No matter," 
she would say ; " if there has been no rain during the day there 
certainly has been during the night." 

The shrine of St. Swithin early sprang into great repute. 
Worshippers, sick folk, the maimed and the halt, flocked hither 
and left behind them substantial signs of gratitude. For cen- 
turies Swithin was the most popular healing saint in England. 
He entirely overshadowed the rival St. Josse or Jodocus long 
previously established in the neighboring minster of St. Grim- 
bald, and finally drove his competitor out of Winchester. Wulf- 
stan records an interesting instance of this rivalry : " There was 
a poor man so sick that be despaired of life. His friends bore 
him to the city, and were for taking him to St. Josse ; but as 
they drew nigh to the gate of the new minster, one met them 
who asked them what they did. St. Swithin's bones, he said, 
were far more potent in the old minster hard by. To this advice 
they listened, and so laid the sick man under the relics of the 
holy St. Swithin; and there they kept watch with him, pray- 



910 



CURIOSITIES OF 



iog and dozing, through the night. Towards daybreak they all 
fell oif to sleep, and to the sick man in his dreams it seemed as 
if the shrine above him rocked and swayed mightily, and some 
one was tugging at his shoes. And he awoke in fear, and lo ! he 
was healed ; but one of his shoes was gone, and, though men 
sought diligently for it, to this day it has never been found." 

Sword Dance. This name was anciently given to a curious 
ceremony annually performed in the North Eiding of Yorkshire on 
St. Stephen's Day which survived until the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century. It is thus described in " Time's Telescope" (1814, 
p. 315) : " Six youths clad in white and bedecked with ribbons, 
with swords in their hands, travel from one village to another. 
They are attended by a fiddler, a youth whimsically dressed, 
named ' Bessy,' and by one who personates a physician. One of 
the six youths acts the part of a king in a sort of farce, which 
consists chiefly of music and dancing, when the Bessy interferes 
while they are making a hexagon with their swords, and is killed." 

Symphorosa, St. A Jewish martyr, better known as the 
mother of the Maccabees. Her festival is celebrated by the 




Maetykdom of St. Symphokosa's Sons. 



Greek Church on July 18. She and her family belonged to that 
noble army of Palestinian martyrs who suffered persecution 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 911 

under Antiochus Epiphanes. She beheld her seven sons, one 
after another, suffer a most excruciating death rather than 
violate the law of God ; and, after encouraging them with a 
fortitude unexampled to endure unto the end, she at last died 
herself, the mother and her seven sons in one day winning 
the crown of martyrdom. The authentic history of their tor- 
ture, endurance, and death will be found in the seventh chap- 
ter of the second book of Maccabees, one of the Apocryphal 
books of the Bible, the account beginning, "It came to pass 
also that seven brethren with their mother were taken, and 
compelled by the king against the law to taste swine's flesh, 
and were tormented with scourges and whips. But one of 
them that spake first said thus : What wouldest thou ask or 
learn of us ? We are ready to die, rather than to transgress the 
laws of our fathers." 

St. Symphorosa is frequently confounded with the Christian 
martyr St. Felicitas. She is accepted as a saint by the Greek 
Church only, who reject St. Felicitas, the latter saint having a 
place in the calendar of the Eastern Church. Baring-Gould 
suspects that the saints are really identical. 



Tammany Hall, St. Tammany. The famous Tammany 
Society, which has always proved one of the mowst formidable 
organizations of the extreme wing of the Democratic party in 
the city of New York, was forjnally organized on May 12. 1789, 
just twelve days after the first installation of Washington as 
President of the Uniied States. Its germ existed further back. 
During the Eevolution the British troops had St. George for their 
patron and his name for their war-cry. The Americans, or some 
of them, not to be outdone, invented a patron saint of their own. 
They took for his legendary personality one Tamanend, a famous 
chieftain of the Delaware Indians, who probably lived at about 
the time of Columbus's discovery of America, and had his favor- 
ite hunting-grounds in what is Eastern Pennsylvania, especially 
around the Delaware Water Gap. A mountain-peak there now 
bears his name. There are many legends of him, mostly iniagi- 
native. Fenimore Cooper has drawn a fine picture of him in 
" The Last of the Mohicans" (chaps, xxviii., xxix.). A story of 
his personal battle with the devil is widely known, which relates 
that the Indian vanquished the fiend and drove him from the 
Pennsylvania mountains to Manhattan Island, where he has since 
made his home. 



912 CURIOSITIES OF 

The Pennsylvania troops took to inscribing his name upon 
their banners and speaking of '' Saint" Tamanend or Tammany 
as their patron saint. They fixed upon May 12 as his birthday, 
and celebrated it each year with great festivities, marked by 
such use of fire-water as at length led to their suppression by 
the authorities, as tending to debauch the army. Forts were 
named after him, and in every camp a wigwam was built in his 
honor, adorned with tomahawks, wampum, and painted totems. 
There the soldiers would gather from time to time, themselves 
decked with feathers, paint, and a buck's hide with the tail hang- 
ing down behind, to listen to a harangue from one of their num- 
ber personating a sachem and to indulge in a grand powwow. 
After the war was ended these observances were carried into 
civil life. Tammany wigwams were built in many towns, Tam- 
many societies were formed, and St. Tammany's Day, May 12, 
was a formidable rival of July 4 as a public holiday. 

Such was the state of affairs when Aaron Burr conceived the 
plan of forming a secret political club. To insure its success, he 
must himself, at least in the beginning, not appear to be identi- 
fied or at all concerned with it. In point of fact he never became 
an actual member. He put forward his friend and most obedient 
servant William Mooney to be its ostensible founder. This latter 
was an upholsterer, an ardent patriot, of Irish parentage, with 
a hatred of the British and of all things aristocratic, and a love 
for the mysterious and spectacular. Mooney borrowed the gen- 
eral scheme of the Tammany societies, called the meeting-place 
of the new organization a Wigwam, its head the Great Father, its 
council of twelve Sachems, its master of ceremonies a Sagamore, 
and its door-keeper a Wiskinkie. He wanted to discard the 
name Tammany, however, and call it " The Columbian Order." 
But it was deemed desirable to compromise the matter. The 
" Great Father" was transformed into " Grand Sachem," and the 
name finally adopted was " The Tammany Society, or Columbian 
Order." As such it was formed at the date named above, and 
soon grew into importance and influence. It celebrated both 
May 12 and July 4 as national holidays, and on the former date 
in 1790 was introduced to the public in The New York Daily 
Gazette in these terms: 

"The Society of St. Tammany, being a national society, con- 
sists of Americans born, who fill all offices, and adopted Ameri- 
cans, who are eligible to the honorary posts of warrior and 
hunter. It is founded on the true principles of patriotism, and 
has for its motives charity and brotherly love. Its officers con- 
sist of one grand sachem, twelve sachems, one treasurer, one 
secretary, one door-keeper; it is divided into thirteen tribes, 
which severally represent a State ; each tribe is governed by a 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 913 

sachem, the honorary posts in which are one warrior and one 
hunter." 

Its legal incorporation was effected on April 9, 1805, the Legis- 
lature granting to " William Mooney and other inhabitants of 
the city of JSTew York" a charter " for the purpose of affording 
relief to the indigent and distressed members of the association, 
their widows and orphans, and others who may be found proper 
objects of their charity." The first Wigwam was in Barden's 
City Hotel, on Broadway, the second in a Broad Street tavern, 
and the third, which was used until the first Tammany Hall was 
erected, in " Martling's Long Room," a drinking-place and dance- 
hall, commonly known as the " Pig-Pen." The character of the 
meetings was afterwards well described by Halleck : 

There's a barrel of porter in Tammany Hall, 

And the Buektails are swigging it all the night long. 

The society began the collection of a museum of patriotic 
relics, of which it presently got tired, and which it turned over 
to P. T. Barnum, to become the nucleus of his famous museum. 
One of its most notable early performances, in 1790, was to save 
the nation from an Indian war. The Creeks were about to go 
on the war-path, when a delegation of them was induced to visit 
'New York, then the Federal capital. If the delegates were 
pleasantly impressed, war might be averted. So the Tammany 
Society invited them to its Wigwam ; all the Tammany men 
were arrayed in paint and feathers, and fire-water was abundant. 
The result was that the Creeks reported to their tribe that it 
would never do to go to war with their own hospitable brethren : 
so the peace was kept. 

In 1811 Tammany became rich enough to leave the Pig-Pen 
and put up a hall of its own. This was a three-story brick 
building on the southeast corner of Nassau and Frankfort 
Streets. It contained what was then the finest public ball-room 
in the city. This building was afterwards enlarged and im- 
proved, and served the society as its head-quarters until 1868, 
when the present building in Fourteenth Street was occupied, 
the corner-stone having been laid on July 4, 1867, with an oration 
by Gulian C. Yerplanck. 

Tenebrse. The name given to the matins and lauds sung in 
Poman Catholic churches on the afternoon or evening of Wcd- 
nesdaj^, Thursday, and Friday in Holy Week. At the beginning 
of the office thirteen candles are placed on a triangular candela- 
brum, and at the end of each psalm one is put out, till only a 
single candle is left lighted at the top of the triangle. During 

58 



914 



CURIOSITIES OF 



the singing of the Benedictus the candles on the high altar are 
likewise extinguished, and at its close the single candle left alight 
is taken from the candelabrum and hidden at the Epistle corner 
of the altar, to be brought out again at the close of the service. 




TENEBR.E,— Extinction of the Lights. 

This extinction of lights (whence probably the name tenebrce, 
or " darkness") symbolizes the growing darkness of the time 
when Christ, the light of the world, was taken. The last candle, 
Benedict XIY. explains, is hidden, not extinguished, to signify 
that death could not really obtain dominion over Christ, though 
it appeared to do so. The clapping of hands after the singing 
of the Miserere symbolizes the confusion consequent on Christ's 
death. In Eome and other Italian cities the entire congregation 
joins in clapping, stamping on the floor, and other noisy demon- 
strations. Children go to the churches carrying sticks entwined 
with colored ribbons, which are exposed for sale in every street- 
stall in the city. These are beaten violently and with a deafen- 
ing clatter against the floor, Avails, or pillars of the church. The 
juvenile explanation makes this the flagellation of the devil, — 
apparently a curious evolution from the flagellation of Christ. 

Tenures, Curious. The law-books are full of cases of 
singular tenures by which estates used to be or are still held, so 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 915 

that, in the quaint language of Blount, one can but " smile at the 
inoffensive mirth both of our kings in former times and lords of 
manors in creating them." Here is an out-of-the-way instance. 
One Solomon Attfield held lands at Repland and Atterton, in 
Kent, upon condition that, as often as the king should cross the 
sea, the said Solomon and his heirs should accompany him, in 
order that they might "hold his head" if his gracious majesty 
were unfortunately visited with sea-sickness. Take another 
example. In the reign of Edward III. one John Corapes had 
the manor of Finchlield given to him as a reward for his arduous 
services at the king's coronation, — which services consisted in 
turning the spit in the royal kitchen. 

Many noble lords held manors by the service of carving for 
the king at annual feasts, or serving him, or bearing a rod before 
him, or guarding his person (as at Shrewsbury when he lay 
there). The lord of the manor of Houghton, Cumberland, was 
obliged to hold the stirrup of the king when he mounted his 
horse in Carhsle Castle, and the lord of Shirefield had the un- 
pleasant duty of being master of the king's meretrices, or laun- 
dresses, as well as of dismembering condemned malefactors and 
measuring the gallons in the king's household. To carry a hawk 
for his majesty, to present him with a gray hood or cap or a 
white ensign whenever he warred in Scotland, to attend with 
proper arms, a horse, sword, lance, or simple bow and arrows, 
whenever their services were required, such were the duties in- 
cumbent upon other manor lords. The service of cornage or 
blowing horns was very common, especially in the Border coun- 
ties, where Scottish invasions were frequent. The owner of 
Kingston Russell, Dorset, was obliged to count the king's chess- 
men and to put them in a bag when the king had finished the 
game. 

The tenant of a large farm at Broadhouse, near Langsett, 
Yorkshire, England, holds the right to the property as long as 
he shall pay a yearly rental of " a snow-ball at midsummer and 
a red rose at Christmas" to the landlord, A red rose at Christ- 
mas in these days of hot-houses is easy enough to obtain. But a 
snow-ball at midsummer? At first sight it would appear that an 
utterly disproportionate trouble and expense must be entailed 
upon the owner of the Broadhouse property. In point of fact, 
whatever may have been the original intent of the donor, from 
time immemorial the midsummer rent has been received in the 
form of a Guelder rose, which is called a snow-ball in the neigh- 
borhood. 

One of the dukes of Scotland relinquishes his rights to his 
lands if it should ever get warm enough to melt the snow from 
the highest peak of the highest mountain in Scotland. 



916 CURIOSITIES OF 

William de Albemarle holds the manor of Leaston "by the 
service of finding for our lord the king two arrows and one loaf 
of oat bread when the sovereign should hunt in the forest of 
Eastmoor." Although the forest is no longer a hunting ground, 
and arrows have long since given place to rifles and shot-guns of 
the best make, still the heirs of Albemarle keep the arrows and 
the oat bread ready for any stray king that may happen that 
way, thus holding good the title to their estates. 

Geoffrey Frumbrand and heirs hold sixty acres of land in 
Suffolk, England, on condition that they pay the sovereign a 
yearly rental of two white doves. 

Not many of these ancient tenures have survived, But for 
over seven hundred years the Corporation of London has 
annually discharged two quaint ceremonies as quit-rents to the 
reigning sovereign for certain lands in the counties of Salop and 
Middlesex of which the Corporation are tenants in capite to the 
crown. The actual site of the property itself has been lost in 
the mists of antiquity. But the ceremony has never been 
omitted. It now takes place in the office of the Queen's Eemem- 
brancer, but anciently before the Cursitor Baron of the Ex- 
chequer, an office which was abolished forty years ago. Here is 
how the London Daily Chronicle describes the ceremony in 1896 : 

" Many visitors — mostly ladies — were present to see the cere- 
mony, which dates back to a.d. 1211. The first rental was ren- 
dered after the following proclamation had been made, viz.: 
' Tenants and occupiers of a piece of waste ground called the 
Moors, in the County of Salop, come forth and do your service.' 
Whereupon the city solicitor cut a fagot with a hatchet and 
another with a bill-hook. On this occasion, by desire of the 
queen, the implements used will be sent to her majesty. The 
second rental rendered was after the following proclamation : 
'Tenants and occupiers of a certain tenement called the Forge, 
in the Parish of St. Clement's Danes, in the County of Middle- 
sex, come forth and do your service.' The city solicitor came 
forward again, and counted on the table six horseshoes and 
sixty-one hobnails, which the Queen's Eemembrancer declared to 
be 'good numbers.' This brought the ceremony to a close. 
During her majesty's reign of sixty years, four Queen's Eemem- 
brancers have taken part in the ceremony, Mr. Pollock being the 
fourth." 

Terminalia. An ancient Eoman festival celebrated on Feb- 
ruary 23 in honor of Terminus, the god of boundaries and 
frontiers. The neighbors on either side of any boundary gathered 
round the stones (fermini) which marked territorial limits and 
crowned them with garlands. Cakes and bloodless sacrifices 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 917 

were offered up. In later times, however, a lamb or sucking 
pig was sometimes slain and the stone sprinkled with the blood. 
In conclusion the whole neighborhood joined in a general feast. 

Teufelstisch. (Ger., " Devil's Table.") The name given to 
a large flat rock lying near Graefenberg, Bavaria. Here, it is 
popularly believed, a glass palace, invisible to mortal eyes, springs 
up just after midnight on May 1. The devil's table occupies the 
centre of the banqueting-hall in this palace, and a ghostly crew, 
including Gambrinus, the inventor of beer, and the shades of the 
ancient kings of France, hold high revelry around the big flat 
rock. 

Thanksgiving Day. A holiday now observed in all the 
United States. Custom prescribes that the date shall be set by 
special proclamation of the President, and adds that the date 
shall be the last Thursday in November. The proclamation 
would appear to stamp the feast with a sort of official character 
possessed by no other holiday in America. But that character 
is only apparent. It is not for the Federal government to tell 
the people of the United States when they shall quit business 
and take to pleasure. The President's proclamation only recom- 
mends that the people, ceasing from their ordinary occupations, 
observe the day with proper ceremony. It only makes it a legal 
holiday in those States which provide for its legality by special 
statute. Thanksgiving, though observed in all the States, is not 
a legal holiday in all of them. 

The celebration has a long and curious history. Days set 
apart for special thanksgiving 'to the Lord were known to the 
Israelites, and are mentioned throughout the Bible. They were 
not uncommon in England before the Eeformation and among 
Protestants afterwards. So recently as 1872 a day of thanks- 
giving was appointed on February 27 for the recovery of the 
Prince of Wales from typhoid fever. 

The ^I'st thanksgiving held in North America was conducted 
by an English minister named Wolfall, in the year 1578, on the 
shores of Newfoundland. The reverend gentleman accompanied 
the expedition under Frobisher which brought the first English 
colony to settle on these shores. The records of this day's 
observances are thus preserved in the ship's log: "On Monday 
morning. May 27, 1578, aboard the Ayde we received all the 
communion by the minister of Gravescnd and prepared as good 
Christians toward God and resolute men for all fortunes and 
toward night we departed toward Tilberry Hope. Here we 
highly praysed God and altogether upon our knees gave Him 
duo humble and hearty thanks, and Maister Wolfall, a learned 



918 CURIOSITIES OF 

man apj join ted by her Majesty's council to be our minister, made 
unto us a godlye sermon, exhorting all especially to be thankful 
to God for His strange and miraculous deliverance in those dan- 
gerous places," etc. This was perhaps the first Christian sermon 
preached and the first celebration of the Holy Communion in 
North America. 

The earliest record of any observance of a similar service 
within the present territory of the United States was held by 
the Popham colony settled at Sagadahoc, on the coast of Maine, 
in August, 1607. 

But these were mere thanksgiving services, which only con- 
sumed a few hours and did not color the whole dsiy. The real 
origin of Thanksgiving as a day specially set apart for prayer 
and rejoicing must be attributed to Governor Bradford, the first 
governor of Massachusetts Colony. In gratitude for the plenteous 
harvest of 1621, following upon a period of great depression, he 
proclaimed a day of thanksgiving to be observed on December 
13 (Old Style) of that year. 

In practical furtherance of his proclamation, he at once sent 
out four men in search of game. Thus early in the history of 
the day does our good friend the turkey make his appearance ; 
for, successful in their quest, the four sportsmen returned, strug- 
gling under a burden of wild fowl, principally turkeys, sufficient 
to meet the wants of the little colony for a week. Then the 
thrifty housewives took the matter in hand and made all the 
goodies possible from their somewhat limited supply of material. 

At the first gray dawn of that first Thanksgiving Day, one of 
the cannon that crowned the hill-top thundered forth a salute. 
A solemn procession to the meeting-house was formed, the men 
marching three abreast. Elder Brewster, in his long preacher's 
camlet coat, walking beside them, bearing with a gravity befitting 
the occasion the great Bible, while the Sergeant in Counsel and 
Governor Bradford brought up the rear. After the service fol- 
lowed the dinner, whose savojy odors seem to have penetrated 
the forest's fastnesses, for in the midst of the festivities an Indian 
shout was heard, and ninety friendly red men, under King Mas- 
sasoit, appeared as if by magic, bearing as an addition to the 
feast huge haunches of venison. The day of Thanksgiving 
lengthened into three, the mere bodily feastings being varied 
with the singing of psalms and songs, with war-dances by the 
savages, with exhibitions of military drill by Captain Standish's 
well-trained soldier5\ and with such sports and pastimes as char- 
acterized the recreations of the middle class of English people in 
those times at home. 

The festival proved the prelude to frequent days of thanks- 
giving in the following years throughout the New England 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 919 

colonies. Sometimes it was appointed once a year, sometimes 
twice, sometimes a year or two were skipped, — according as 
reasons forgiving thanks presented themselves or not. Now the 
reason was a victory over the Indians, then the arrival of a ship 
with supplies or " persons of special use and quality," and yet 
again a bountiful harvest. The frequent appointments for the 
last cause finally made August the customary month. Beginning 
with 1684, the festival became a formal and annual one in Massa- 
chusetts. Her example was soon followed by all the New England 
colonies. 

One of the potent influences which aided its genei-al acceptance 
in these colonies was the Puritanic hatred of Christmas as a relic 
of "Popish mummery." Such "superstitious meats" as baron 
of beef, boar's head, plum-pudding, and mince pie, all redolent 
of memories of the ancient feast, were eschewed in favor of the 
indigenous turkey, Indian pudding, and pumpkin pie. 

In pioneer Thanksgiving times in Ehode Island and Connecti- 
cut, however, venison or bear's meat rather than turkey was the 
centre of the festal board. In a new^spaper pubhshed in Con- 
necticut in colonial times is to be found an account of the feast 
spread before the Governor and Her Majesty's Commissioners on 
Thanksgiving Day, 1713, from which it appears that, before the 
company fell to, the announcement was made that the venison 
had come from a deer which had been shot " on ye Lord's Day." 
Thereupon the entire company refused to eat, and it was decided 
that the Indian who had shot the deer should receive thirty-nine 
stripes and should restore to the purchaser the price paid for the 
meat. Then, having inflicted a "just and righteous sentence on 
ye sinful heathen," the comply (with the exception of one 
member, whose conscience was not satisfied) fell upon the ven- 
ison and devoured it. 

During the Revolutionary War Thanksgiving lost some of its 
local New England character. The Continental Congress recom- 
mended no less than eight days of Thanksgiving. They fell in 
April, May, July, and December. The appointments were made 
in the form of recommendations to the heads of the various 
colonial governments. With one exception. Congress suspended 
business on the days appointed. 

Washington issued a proclamation for a general thanksgiving 
by the Continental Army, Thursday, D.ecember 18, 1777, and 
again at Valley Forge, May 7, 1778. A few days before the 
adjournment of Congress in September, 1789, Representative 
Elias Boudinot moved in the House that the President be re- 
quested to recommend a day of thanksgiving and prayer in 
acknowledgment of the many signal favors of Almigiity God, 
and especially his affording them an opportunity of establishing 



920 CURIOSITIES OF 

a constitution of government for their safety and happiness. 
Eoger Sherman, of Connecticut, supported the motion. jEdanus 
Burke, of South Carolina, did not like "this mimicking of Euro- 
pean customs," and Thomas T. Tucker, of Virginia, intimated 
that it might be as well to wait for some experience of the 
eflSciency of the Constitution before returning thanks for it. In 
spite of these objections, the motion was carried, and President 
Washington issued a proclamation appointing as Thanksgiving 
Day November 26. 

The original manuscript of this proclamation, interesting as 
the first ever issued by a President of the United States, is now 
(1897) in the hands of the Eev. J. W. Wellman, who had it as 
an heirloom from his grandfather, William Eipley, of Cornish, 
New Hampshire. 

Following Washington, several Presidents issued general pro- 
clamations on special occasions ; but usually it was left to the 
governors of the States to determine whether there should be a 
day of Thanksgiving and what that day should be. 

Now, it happened that Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, coming down from 
Boston to Philadelphia to edit Godey's Lady's Book, realized as 
she had not done while in her New England home how limited 
was the observance of the day. Wherefore she sat down and 
wrote letters to the governors of all the States and Territories, 
suggesting that they should, by proclamation, appoint the last 
Thursday of November as a day for thanksgiving, so that the 
celebration might be given a national character. This she did 
year after year, and was so far successful that in 1859 the gov- 
ernors of all the States but two yielded to her request. But as 
yet there was no very wide-spread attention from the people 
invited to keep the day. During the war the custom lagged in 
those States in which it had not firmly intrenched itself, espe- 
cially in the South, where indeed it has always had to combat 
the suspicion of being a Puritan substitute for Christmas. But 
most of the Northern governors continued to issue their procla- 
mations, which were generally followed by great devastations 
among the flocks of turke3'-gobblers. Immediately after the 
battle of Gettysburg, in July, 1863, Mrs. Hale wrote to President 
Lincoln, enclosing a copy of Washington's Thanksgiving procla- 
mation issued from New York in 1789, and suggested that he, 
too, should proclaim a day of National Thanksgiving. Her sug- 
gestion was followed on July 15, when the President issued a pro- 
clamation " for the observance of Thursday, August 6, as a day 
for national thanksgiving, praise, and prayer." Since then (with 
only one exception of date) the Presidents have appointed the 
last Thursday of November, exchanging the local and variable 
observance of early days for one truly national. 



.^c 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 921 

The Thanksgiving of the present is built upon the Thanks- 
giving of the past, but has incorporated into itself many of the 
genial features of Christmas, and this in its turn has among 
Americans borrowed sbmething from the modern holiday. There 
has been an unconscious unification of the two feasts in certain 
material aspects. The Thanksgiving turkey has driven the 
Christmas goose from all tables; and on the other hand the 
mince pie of Christmas shares the honor of completing the 
Thanksgiving indigestion with the pumpkin pie which once 
monopolized the work. 

A correspondent of the New York Evening Post (November 
25, 1891) has given a pleasant account of how Thanksgiving was 
celebrated about the middle of the century in New England. 
Many of the old forms are still retained, yet some have been so 
modified or so nearly lost that it is well to keep a record of them. 

" The old country Thanksgiving," this authority tells us, " then 
ks now had its threefold character, — sportive, iestal, and religious, 
— but two of its sportive elements have now almost faded away. 
One was the ' rafiie,' always held on Thanksgiving Eve. Some- 
times it was held at a farm-house, sometimes at the country 
store, more often at the local butcher's shop. Each turkey, 
goose, or chicken, all usuall}^ the relics of the earlier Thanks- 
giving sales and therefore tough and adamantine, had its number 
of chances ticketed upon it in sprawling figures. A fair-sized 
fowl had ten chances of sixpence each; a fat goose ran up to 
a dozen sixpences, and a turkey, if fat, fair, and not forty, to 
thirty sixpences or fewer ninepences. A dice-box, two dice, and 
three throws, with their maximum of thirty-six points, a crowded 
room in the flickering glow of 'jtaller dips' or camphene lamps, 
and a jolly crowd of rustics, fringed with small boys, were the 
other components of the picture. The 'banker,' if such the 
proprietor of the raflle may be called, had little tricks of his own. 
Sometimes he loaded up a turkey, fair to the eye but sinewy in 
flesh, with many high-priced chances. Geese, rotund in figure 
but rank and fishy from self- fattening on the minnows of their 
natal pond, were another form of his deceit ; and he had a true 
Yankee trick of watching keenly the gambling fervor of his 
patrons and disposing of his toughest fowls when the frenzy ran 
highest. Human nature cropped out in those ancestral turkey- 
raffles as clearly as in Wall Street now^adays, 

" Another of the sportive features of the Yankee Thanksgiving 
Day, now almost extinct, was the shooting-match, usually held 
in the morning, and therefore not vie^A'ed with favor by the 
Church, because of its tendency to entice the youth from the 
Thanksgiving service. In an open field a basc-lino was marked 
on the turf. From this were laid off" certain shooting-distances. 



922 CURIOSITIES OF 

Eight rods, about, was ' chicken distance ;' about nine rods, tur- 
key distance ; while for rifle-shooting, with a turkey as target 
and prize, the distance was more arbitrary, but not often more 
than twenty rods. There were at each distance ' stools' of block 
and nail to tie the doomed fowls to, and twenty feet back of the 
base-line a ' rest' of a dry-goods box, on which shooters so de- 
siring could place their guns under penalty of the longer range. 
The match was more between the fowls and the gunner than 
between the shooters. The chickens and turkeys chosen by the 
shrewd master of the Yankee Schtitzenfest were ever of the 
most archaic type, with flesh of iron, and so long as they could 
' stand up or fly a rod' the fusillade had to continue. They seemed 
to absorb shot like cornmeal, and occasionally survived fifteen or 
twenty of the cruel firings. 

"In its religious character the old Yankee Thanksgiving was 
a curious hybrid. On the one side was the severe ancestral 
orthodoxy and a religion which has been aptly described as a 
brooding sense that something awful was always going to hap- 
pen ; and on the other hand the ofiicial Church order to rejoice 
and give thanks on the day, even though the pit yawned on the 
day before and the day after. To the severely pious, therefore, 
the day was a sort of paradox, and to the youngsters of the 
congregation, pent up in the pew, a veritable Sunday, only diluted 
by the single service and by the aroma of the coming turkey. 
The wives often stayed at home to prepare the dinner; and this 
absenteeism was sometimes made the object of severe reproach 
from the pulpit, aimed at preference for the flesh-pots over spir- 
itual things. Nevertheless even the Yankee pulpit ' cheered up' 
perceptibly on Thanksgiving. Not seldom it turned, as on ' fast 
day,' towards secular topics, local. State, or national ; and it was 
on a Thanksgiving that one of our stanch Federalist pastors of 
Connecticut prayed, 'And, O Lord, endovV the President [Jeffer- 
son] with a goodly portion of thy grace, for thou, O Lord, 
know est that he needs it.' 

" But the festal trait of the old Yankee Thanksgiving was the 
prime mark of the day. It was the one time of the year when 
into the hard-fisted home life and its deep religious gloom the 
sunlight fairly entered, and it was proportionally made much of, 
with preparations begun many days before the feast, and the 
feast itself looked forward to with an excitement of which our 
later Yankee generation knows nothing. Its reunions, its vacant 
chairs, its yearly story of profit or of pain, touched the inner 
chords of those stern old Yankee souls and made them vibrant. 
The table fare was graded downward on a sort of barn-yard 
scale: for the squirearch the stall-fed turkey, specially fattened 
and sometimes rising twenty pounds, at one end of the board, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 923 

chicken pie at the other ; for the well-to-do farm household, a 
turkey of minor degree, without the pie ; and for the poorer 
farmers, the pie without the turkey. But every table, rich or 
poor, had its cider and its mince pie, which, with a fowl of some 
land, were the trinity of the feast. They survive still until our 
time; but from the modern board one very common side-dish of 
the old Thanksgiving is missed, — pigeon pie. In those days the 
wild pigeons lighting by hundreds on the buckwheat-fields were 
enticed by a decoy bird within range of a spring net and taken 
in multitudes. Kept alive in enclosures and fattened on grain, 
they entered at iast the dish to whose savory quality our ances- 
tors could render no higher tribute than by their daring mutila- 
tion of a favorite h^^mn : 

" When I can read my title clear 

To mansions in the skies, 

I'll bid farewell to every fear 

And live on pigeon pies. 

" In the hospitable glow of the season, no tramp went unfed, 
and even the town poor-house had its turkey ; old enemies chose 
the time for ' making up' their feuds ; and the day, as a rule, in- 
finitely more than now under our sunnier creeds, turned men for 
a while from the darksome theory of retribution towards the 
gentle humanities. In our days of liberal theology, expanding 
Christian unities, and organized charities, we of a later Yankee 
generation can never fully know how to our ancestors that old 
and single Thanksgiving Day of the year was worth the whole 
fifty-two Sundays, and how it tempered the fierce doctrinal heats 
of a hundred and four sermons." 

In the State of l^ew York the first Thanksgiving proclama- 
tion was issued by Governor John Jay in 1795. It was an- 
nounced as an expression of gratitude for the cessation of the 
yellow fever plague of that year, and was appointed for Thurs- 
day, November 26'. Political opponents, on the alert for fault- 
finding, bitterly censured this act as another evidence of the 
governor's aristocratic or federal notions of government and in 
excess of his due prerogatives as an executive ofiicer. 

In the middle of the century it was fashionable, and therefore 
customary, to make calls. Thanksgiving Day rivalled New 
Year's Day in this respect. Society folk dined at noon, drove 
to Kingsbridge and back, and then held receptions. It is re- 
corded that in the days when Ward McAllister and Peter Marie 
were young beaux and Bond Street was a fashionable prom- 
enade they never missed a Thanksgiving afternoon call upon 
a gentleman whose name has come down to posterity only as 
" Turner the generous." 



924 CURIOSITIES OF 

Mr. Turner lived in lower Fifth Avenue, and his Thanksgiving 
afternoons were famous. He kept open house, as did many other 
New Yorkers, and dispensed a peculiarly seductive eggnog, which 
was sipped through a straw. A box of cigars was offered as a 
prize to the guest who could drink three of ^hese eggnogs, and 
tradition says that Mr. McAllister was a prize-winner. 

Another and somewhat strange way of observing the holiday 
in New York has been, up to very recent years, to dress one's self 
in the most fantastic costume imaginable and parade the streets. 
This was undoubtedly a survival of the old Pope Day or Guy 
Fawkes's Day (q. v.) mummeries translated to a later day in the 
same month. Hundreds of companies of these motley persons, 
under some such name as the " Square Back Eangers," the " Slen- 
derfoot Ai-my," or the " Original Hounds," and dressed chiefly, 
as an old account says, as "clowns, Yankees, Irishmen, kings, 
washerwomen, and courtiers," thronged the streets all day. 
These "ragamuffin parades" have fallen into disuse except for a 
few small boys, but as recently as 1885 they w^ere in full swing, 
as the following paragraph, printed in the Sun on November 27, 
1885, testifies : 

" Fantastic processions burst out all over the town in unusual 
abundance and filled the popular eye with a panorama that 
looked like a crazy-quilt show grown crazy and filled the popu- 
lar ear with the din of thumping drums and blaring trumpets. 
Thirty-six companies of fantastics had permits to march around 
making an uproar, and they did it with great success. Local 
statesmen went around with the down-town paraders and helped 
them whoop things up. There were lots and lots of fantastics 
who hadn't any permit, and who didn't care either. They were 
the thousands and thousands of small boys who put on their 
sisters' old dresses, smeared paint on their faces, pulled on red, 
yellow, brown, black, and indiscriminate wigs, and pranced round 
their own particular streets, without the least fear of police in- 
terference." 

These fantastic parades sometimes attained the dignity of a 
political demonstration. In 1870 the chief feature of Thanks- 
giving Day observances in New York was a parade of the 
Shandley Legion. The route was from Essex Market to Irving 
Hall, and the whole town turned out to see it. The newspapers 
the day before announced that " Senator Tweed will review the 
troops from the parlor windows of the Blossom Club, and not 
from the balcony of his residence at Forty-First Street and 
Fifth Avenue." 

Prizes w^orth over ten thousand dollars were distributed among 
the paraders. The list of those contributing tow^ards the prizes 
makes rather interesting reading at this time. Here are a few 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 925 

extracts from the list : Senator William M. Tweed, $500 in gold ; 
Assistant District Attorney Fellows, a diamond ring, worth $75 ; 
James Timoney, of Wallack's, silver, $20 ; E. D. Bassford, set of 
crockery, worth $175 ; the Hon. Tim J. Campbell, check for $50 ; 
Mr. William Edelstein (law partner of young Tweed), $50 ; a 
friend of Commissioner Shandley, a set of harness ; General 
Miles, president of the Sixpenny Savings Bank, gold, $100 ; the 
Stable Gang, bills, $100 ; W. J. Florence, the comedian, check 
for $50. The Sun, in concluding its list of these donations, says, 
" And so on to an almost interminable length, the list comprising 
everything from a piano to a shirt-stud." 

Theresa, St. (It. Santa Teresa; Fr, Sainte-Therese ; Sp. 
Santa Teresa), patron saint of Spain. Her festival is celebrated 
on the day of her death, October 15. 

St. Theresa was born at Avila, in Old Castile, on the 28th of 
March, 1515. She was of a noble family, and was very piously 
brought up. Her mind was probably unbalanced by her emo- 
tional nature, and when she was but nine years old she set off 
with her brother into the country of the Moors, in the hope 
of becoming a martyr. The children were brought back, and 
then resolved to become hermits, but were not allowed to carry 
out this idea. At. the age of twenty St. Theresa entered the 
Carmelite convent at Avila, where she was in great stress of 
mind for a number of years. She has left behind a history of 
her struggles and temptations, from which it appears that she 
derived much comfort and consolation from the '• Confessions" 
of St. Augustine. She became active in deeds of charity, and 
threw herself into the task of reforming the Carmelite order. 
She began with eight nuns oply in a small convent, but by the 
time of her death she had founded thirty convents and had 
established her lule in a number of monasteries as well. Her 
main idea was that those who followed the rule should possess 
absolutely nothing and subsist on charity. Besides the history 
of her life she wrote many devout works. She died at Alva in 
1582. Philip III. declared her to be the second patron saint of 
Spain. She was canonized by Gregory XY. in 1622. Her body 
was buried at Alva, but was removed to Avila in 1585. The 
following year, however, it was moved back to Alva by an order 
from Eome obtained by the Duke of Alva, where it remains to 
the present day. Many miracles are recorded as wrought by her 
relics and through her intercession. The body of the saint is 
not now entire at Alva, and some of her relics have been scat- 
tered. Her left arm is at Lisbon. Fingers of her right hand 
are at Seville, Eome, Avila, Paris, and Brussels. Her right foot 
is in Rome, together with a slice of her flesh. A wooden cross 



926 CURIOSITIES OF 

with which the saint is said to have combated devils is at Eome, 
and another at Brussels. Her slippers are shown at Avila, and 
also her staff and rosary ; her veil is at Cagliari ; a piece of 
flesh and a tooth are preserved in the Carmelite church of 
Venice. At Piacenza a napkin stained with the blood of the 
saint is exposed on the day of her festival. At Milan a slice of 
her heart and a tooth are shown; at Naples are a lump of 
flesh and the saint's scapular, and another lump of flesh is at 
Paris. Two large slices of flesh are at Cracow. St. Theresa is 
represented in art with a flaming arrow penetrating her heart, 
or with Christ presenting a nail to her. Sometimes she appears 
in a biretta with book and pen, and with the Dove whispering 
in her ear, as a doctor of the Church. 

Thomas a Becket, St. (1117-1170), or St. Thomas of Can- 
terbury, as he is better known to the hagiologists. The most 
popular saint of Catholic England. His memory was formerly 
commemorated not only on the anniversary of his murder or 
martyrdom, December 29, but also and more particularly on the 
anniversary of the translation of his relics, July 7 (1223). The 
latter was and is still known in Great Britain as St. Thomas's 
Day. Its eve was kept as a strict fast by the clergy and pilgrims 
to his shrine. The pilgrimages to Canterbury are especially 
famous in literature through the " Canterbury Tales" of Chaucer. 
For upwards of three centuries after the translation, pilgrims 
from every nation, rank, and class thronged to the martyr's 
tomb on St. Thomas's Day. Up to a comparatively recent time, 
a faint survival of the festivities of this day was retained in 
Becket' s Fair, held on July 7 at Canterbury. It may also be 
noted that according to " Time's Telescope" (1822, p. 192), quoted 
in Dyer's " British Popular Customs," the Sunday after St. 
Thomas's Day formerly went by the name of Eelic Sunday in 
some parts of Northamptonshire. (See also Bodmin Biding.) 

The details of Becket's Hfe are too well known to need any but 
the briefest recapitulation. He commenced life as a gay com- 
panion of Henry II., who loaded him with favors and finally 
conferred on him the archbishopric of Canterbury. From that 
time Thomas's character underwent a complete transformation. 
The former worldly-minded courtier now became the devout and 
ascetic priest, who walked alone in the cloister bewailing his 
past sins, who washed the feet of pilgrims and beggars, and 
whose sole aim was the exaltation of the power of Church over 
State. We need no longer look at the great prelate through the 
spectacles of his posthumous Protestant opponents. With all its 
faults, the Church of Becket's day was the only possible helper 
of the people. The Bishop of Eome was just then a less dan- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



927 



gerous shepherd than Henry, the Angevin king. Becket may 
not have become consciously a champion of the people when he 
turned an opponent of the king, nevertheless he proved a mighty 
agent in winning that long battle for English liberty which was 
by no means closed on the scaffold of King Charles, five hundred 
years later. 

Henry, stung by repeated acts of contumacy, one day let fall 
the angry expression, "Of the cow^ards that eat my bread, are 
there none that will relieve me of this upstart priest ?" Four 
Norman knights accepted the unwary remark as a hint. The 
result was the murder of the archbishop on the very steps of his 
altar. 

The news filled all Christendom with horror. King Henry, in 
sackcloth and ashes, bewailed the crime which he had unwittingly 
instigated. "He shut himself up three days in his closet," says 
good Bishop Butler, " taking almost no nourishment and admit- 
ting no comfort, and for forty days never went abroad, never had 
his table or any diversions as usual, having always before his 
eyes the death of the holy prelate. He not only wept, but 




Shrine of St. Thomas 1 Becket. 

howled and cried out in the excess of his grief" He assured the 
Pope of his absolute innocence in intention. He voluntarily 
made all the concessions which St. Thomas had demanded. The 
martyr was canonized two years after his death by Alexander 
III., and there was an immediate outbreak of miracles at his 
shrine, w^hich long continued to be the most popular pilgrim- 
age place in England, while his cult spread rapidly throughout 
every country in Europe. 

Among the first of these pilgrims came Henry II. to do a 
second penance in expiation of his unwitting crime and sacrilege. 



928 CURIOSITIES OF 

After having lived upon bread and water for some days, and 
after walking barefooted to the cathedral, he knelt in the transept, 
where the martyrdom had occurred, and then in the crypt, where 
a Becket's tomb then was. Upon this he bowed his head, and, his 
lower garments having been removed, the King of England, a 
Plantagenet, received five strokes from the rod of each bishop 
and abbot who was present, and three from each of the eighty 
monks! 'After this he stood the whole night barefooted upon 
the ground, resting only against one of the rude stone pillars 
of the crypt. 

St. Thomas's fame now extended throughout Europe. Even 
to this day his hair shirt is preserved in a reliquary in the Eng- 
lish college at Douay ; a small part in the abbey of Liesse ; a 
bone of his arm in the church of St. Waltrude, at Mons ; his 
chalice in the nunnery of Bourbourg ; his mitre and linen, dipped 
in his blood, at St. Berlin's, in St. Omer, and other relics at 
Eheims, at Eome, at Florence, at Yerona, at Lisbon. There is a 
chapel dedicated to him at Lyons, and a house with an inscription 
bearing his name at Lille ; his figure may still be seen in the 
church of Monreale at Palermo, and his stoiy is blazoned in the 
beautiful windows of Chartres, of Sens, and of St. Ouen, while 
his martyrdom is elaborately embroidered on a cloth still kept 
in the cathedral of Anagni. The Crusaders founded a church 
and cemetery in his honor at Acre. 

In England, of course, the tokens of devout homage were 
more conspicuous and universal. It is hence that the name of 
Thomas became so common among Englishmen, and that so 
many of the English ancient bells, like that of Christ Church, 
Oxford, rejoice in the name " Great Tom." 

It is obvious that the unfeigned and abiding homage which for 
nearly four centuries was paid to his name marks something 
in his character and career Avhich awoke a national response in 
the national heart. In the first half-century after his death the 
monks kept the door of his vault in which the body lay under 
lock and key, but on Friday in Easter week and on the Nones 
of April the door was opened and all persons were permitted to 
perform their devotions at the tomb. 

On July 7, 1223, the relics were translated from the crypt to 
a sumptuous shrine in the east end of the cathedral, amid a 
splendid assemblage of the highest prelates and potentates of 
England, headed by the primate and by the sovereign himself, 
Henry III., then a boy of thirteen. 

The shrine is thus described by John Stow in his Annals : " It 
was built about a man's height of stone, then upward of plain 
timber, within which was an iron chest, containing the bones of 
St. Thomas, as also the skull, with the wound of his death, and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 929 

the piece cut out of the skull laid in the same wound. The 
timber work of this shrine on the outside was covered with 
plates of gold, damasked and embossed, garnished with brooches, 
images, angels, chains, precious stones, and great Oriental pearls." 
Chief among the jewels was the royal diamond given by Louis, 
King of France. The marble stones before the place remain to 
this day, much worn and hollowed by the knees of the pilgrims 
who resorted thither. 

In 1520, Henry YIII., with his guest the Emperor Charles Y., 
came to pay his devotions at St. Thomas's shrine. Fifteen years 
later, on July 6, the eve of the great feast of the Translation of 
St. Thomas, and therefore, as he touchingly expressed it, " a meet 
day and very convenient for me," Sir Thomas More was executed 
for denying the royal supremacy. 

Two years later, that same day, which had always hitherto 
been observed by the English primates as a strict fast, was 
ostentatiously kept as a festival at Lambeth Palace, the arehi- 
episcopal residence, by Archbishop Cranmer, who " ate flesh, and 
did sup in his hall with his family, which was never seen before." 
Next year the blow fell. With a ludicrous parody of the forms 
of justice, the dead archbishop was formally summoned before 
the Privy Council to answer charges of "treason, contumacy, 
and rebellion," and was, of course, convicted ; whereupon his 
name was stricken from the reformed calendar, his bones were 
ordered to be burned, and the treasures of his shrine forfeited to 
the crown. A royal commission under the notorious Dr. Leyton 
was sent down to Canterbury to carry out this order, but unfor- 
tunately no authentic record is extant of the proceedings, and 
hence the doubts which have since arisen about the disposal of 
the body. Dean Stanley says that "the bones were either scat- 
tered to the winds, or, if interred, mingled indiscriminately with 
others." And he quotes in proof of it a passage from Harpsfield's 
Life of Sir Thomas More : " We have of late unshrined him, and 
buried his holy relics." 

An examination of the text, however, reveals the fact that 
"burned," and not "buried," was the word used by Harpsfield, 
and this is now the prevalent belief Nevertheless, in 1888 the 
despoiled shrine was opened with much ceremony and some 
bones were discovered. The controversy which raged over the 
genuineness of these bones as relics of the great saint has ended 
in their general rejection by historical experts and by the Cath- 
ohc Church. 

St. Thomas's Day was never restored, even as a black-letter 
day, to the English Common Prayer Book. It is, however, found 
in the calendar of Queen Elizabeth's Prices Privata^ (1564), 
and was often inserted in ordinary almanacs and in calendars 

69 



930 CURIOSITIES OF 

published by the Stationers' Compan}^, under the authority of 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, down to 1832. 

On a recent visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury to the 
cathedral of his diocese a very ancient and very pretty custom 
was revived. His grace was " received" by an assembly, one and 
all of whom wore lilies of the valley. The custom is said to date 
from Thomas a Becket, who was so fond of the flower that he 
filled his gardens adjoining the cloisters with it. For years after 
his death and canonization bouquets of his lilies used to be 
placed upon his shrine, and in time the flower came to be worn 
in the season by all who attended upon the primate. Even the 
casual visitor to Canterbury cannot fail to have been struck by 
the millions of lilies which lend grace to all the gardens in the 
vicinity of the minster. (London Graphic, March 23, 1892.) 

Thomas Didymus, St., apostle, and patron saint of Por- 
tugal and of Parma. His festival is celebrated on December 21. 

Besides what is known of St. Thomas from the New Testa- 
ment, tradition avers that after the Ascension he travelled into 
India, where among others he baptized the three Magi, and 
founded the Christian sect which is still known by his name in 
India. According to one legend, when the apostle was at Caesarea 
it was revealed to him that he should go to Gondoforus, King 
of the Indies, and undertake the building of a splendid palace 
which the king desired. He accordingly went to the king, 
who intrusted him with the building of the palace and gave him 
much treasure. The king himself went away for two years, and 
meantime Thomas distributed the treasure to the poor. When 
the king returned he was enraged and threw the saint into a 
dungeon. But just then the king's brother died, and four days 
afterwards he appeared to the king and told him of a glorious 
palace of gold and silver that Thomas had built for him in heaven. 
Then Gondoforus released Thomas. Another legend, known as 
that of the "Madonna della Cintola," relates that when Mary 
ascended into heaven Thomas was not present with the rest of 
the apostles ; and, as he was of a sceptical turn of mind, he would 
not believe the narrative of his brother apostles. Her tomb was 
therefore opened, and found to be empty ; moreover, so the legend 
runs, the Virgin dropped her girdle to Thomas from heaven to 
assure him of the truth of her ascension. A girdle which is 
said to be the one the Virgin threw to Thomas is still pre- 
served in the cathedral of Prato. Tradition relates that St. 
Thomas suffered martyrdom at Meliapor, now called St. Thomas, 
on the banks of the Ganges, being pierced with a lance at the 
foot of a cross he had erected. His body is supposed to have 
been entombed at Edessa. In 1523 his tomb is said to have been 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



931 



discovered at Meliapor by John III. of Portugal, and the remains 
were deposited at Goa. Relics are shown at Groa and at Ortona. 
The Latins keep the feast of St. Thomas on the 21st of Decem- 
ber, the Greeks on the 6th of October, and the Hindoo Christians 




Martyrdom of S^r. Thomas Didymus. 

on the Ist of July. When St. Thomas is represented in art as 
an apostle his attribute is a builder's rule or square ; as a martyr 
he bears a lance. 

In England St. Thomas's Day is still commemorated by old 
women who perambulate many of the towns in the expectation 
of receiving small gratuities. This is usually called "going 
a-goodening" or " a-gooding." But it is locally known in York- 
shire as "mumping," and in Cheshire as "going a-Thomassing." 
The last term is obvious enough. The word " gooding" may be 
derived from "goody," the name given to old widows, though it 
also may be a corruption of " hodening" and therefore refer to 
Woden or Odin, the presiding deity of the ancient Yule-tide 
rites. The word "mumping" comes to us from the Dutch, and 
signifies to mumble or mutter, the mumpers being usually old 
and toothless people. 



932 CURIOSITIES OF 

The following rhyme for this day is taken from the Bilston 
Mercury^ Staffordshire: 

Well-a-day, well-a-day, 

St. Thomas goes too soon away ; 

Then your gooding we do pray, 

For the good time will not stay. 

St. Thomas Grey, St. Thomas Grey, 

The longest night and the shortest day, 

Please to remember St. Thomas' Pay. 

Three Kings of Cologne. This is the name under which 
the Wise Men of the East (Malt, ii.) are popularly known. (See 
Epiphany.) Although there is no Biblical sanction for this at- 
tribution of royalty, legend has endowed them with specific 
kingdoms and given them names which were unknown to the 
Evangelists. According to these authorities, the Wise Men were 
Caspar, or Jaspar, King of Tarsus, the land of myrrh ; Melchior, 
King of Arabia, where the soil is ruddy with gold ; and Bal- 
thasar, King of Saba, where frankincense flows from the trees. 
They were wise and learned men, for in those days kings and 
princes were not as they are to-day. 

When they beheld the wondrous star, they arose joyfully 
and mounted their dromedaries and set forth on their long and 
perilous journey, the star going before, and arrived at length in 
Jerusalem. And they asked, " Where is he who is born King of 
the Jews? We have seen the star, but we have lost it." 

For, indeed, it had disappeared when the kings reached Jeru- 
salem. This was done in accordance with the will of God, who 
desired that the nativity of his precious Son should be made 
known throughout Jerusalem. 

It soon came to the ears of Herod that these Three Kings 
were making inquiries- concerning a child whom they called the 
King of the Jews. So he summoned all his learned men and 
asked them where the prophets had said that the Messiah should 
be born. And they answered, " In Bethlehem." Herod was 
grievously troubled. He summoned the Three Kings and feasted 
them, and told them to go to Bethlehem, and if they found the 
child they should return and tell him, " that I may come and 
worship him also." 

So the kings departed, and when they were out of Jerusalem 
the star reappeared as before in the heavens and guided them to 
Bethlehem. When Mary heard the tramping of their drome- 
daries' feet, she was much alarmed, and took Jesus into her 
arms, fearing that he would be taken from her ; and it was in 
this attitude the kings found the mother and the child. They 
threw themselves on their knees with the utmost reverence, and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 933 

adored Jesus as God and the Saviour of the world. Then they 
offered him rich gifts. Caspar gave gold, to signify that the 
babe was king ; Melchior gave frankincense, to show that he 
was God ; and Balthasar offered myrrh, as a reminder that he 
was man, and doomed to die. 

In return, the Saviour bestowed upon them gifts of more 
matchless price. For their gold he gave them charity and 
spiritual riches ; for their incense, faith; and for their myrrh, 
truth and meekness. And the Virgin, his mother, also bestowed 
on them a precious gift and memorial, — namely, one of those 
linen bands in which she had wrapped the Saviour ; for which 
they thanked her with great humility and laid it among their 
treasures. 

When they had performed their devotions and made their 
offerings, the Three Kings, having been warned in a dream to 
avoid Herod, turned back again to their own dominions. And, 
arriving there, they laid down their earthly state and distributed 
their goods to the poor, and went about in mean attire preaching 
to their people the Child-King, the Prince of Peace. 

About forty years later, St. Thomas, travelling in India, found 
the Wise Men there, and he baptized and ordained them. Later 
still they were martyred for their faith, and were buried to- 
gether. Divers great and glorious miracles were performed at 
their tomb. Thither came the devout Empress Helena and 
found their bones, which she carried to Constantinople and laid 
in the church of St. Sophia, but at the time of the first Cru- 
sade they were transported to Milan. Thence Barbarossa took 
them at the siege of Milan, and deposited them in the cathedral 
of Cologne. The shrine of the Three Kings became so popular 
a place of pilgrimage that it wa^ soon felt that the old cathedral 
was not a fitting shrine for them. A providential fire destroyed 
the old cathedral, and a new one was built on its ruins. 

And in that marvellous old church the bones of the Three 
Kings are shown to this day, laid in a shrine of gold and gems, 
and surrounded with other relics of like interest and authenticity. 

Thump. A local name in Lancashire for a feast held on the 
Sunday after a village wake (q. v.). The name is said to have 
arisen from the rude custom of " thumping" any one who en- 
tered an inn on such an occasion and refused to pay for liquor. 
'• At a recent Halifax wake," says Ditchfield, " an offender of 
this description was laid face downward and beaten with a 
heated fire-shovel. The ringleader of this frolic nearly suffered 
a month's imp^risonment on account of his strict adherence to old 
customs." (^Old English Customs, p. 131.) The same authority 
mentions as still extant the Queensbury Thump, and the Clayton, 



934 CURIOSITIES OF 

Thornton, Denholme, and AllerLon Thumps, when the natives 
who reside elsewhere make a rule to visit their old home, and the 
reassembling of scattered families causes much social happiness. 
" At Great Gransden the feast is held on the Monday after the 
feast of St. Bartholomew, the patron saint of the village, when 
stalls are erected near the Plough Inn, and the villagers indulge 
in dancing. At West Houghton, Lancashire, a huge pie is made 
in the shape of a cow's head, which is eaten on the day of the 
wake, the Sunday after St. Bartholomew's Day." 

Tichborne Crawls, The. During the reign of Henry II. 
the Lady Mabella Ticbborne, who had been bedridden for years, 
and was then at death's door, besought her husband. Sir Eoger, 
to bestow upon her such means as should enable her to leave a 
bequest of a loaf to all applicants on the festival of the An- 
nunciation (March 25) forever. In reply her husband promised 
her the produce of so much of his property as she could go 
round while a brand which he caused to be lighted should burn. 
He fancied that by reason of her great age and infirmity she 
would get over very little ground, but, being borne to a corner 
of the park, she made a vehement effort, hobbled round twenty- 
three acres of very rich land, known to-day as " the Crawls," 
and was then carried back to her bed. Presently she called her 
household around her, and prophesied that the Tichborne family 
would prosper so long as the dole was continued to the poor, but 
that if it was neglected the family name would be lost for want 
of male issue, and that in such case the baronet of the day would 
have seven sons, but that the next heir would have seven daugh- 
ters and no male children. In 1796, a great crowd of gypsies, 
thieves, and other lawless characters having behaved in a very 
unruly manner during the distribution of the dole, the neighbors 
made an outcry, and it has never been given regularly since. 
Strange to say, a partial fulfilment of Lady Mabella's prophecy 
followed. In 1803 the then head of the family died and left 
seven sons, the eldest of whom succeeded to the baronetcy, but 
he died leaving seven daughters, whereupon that branch of the 
family took the name of Doughty, so that the Tichborne name 
was actually merged for a time. 

Touching for King's Evil. An old English superstition 
which survived even to the eighteenth century attributed to the 
British sovereign the power of curing disease by touching the 
part affected. Especially was this the case in regard to the 
disease known as scrofula, or king's evil, which eventually mo- 
nopolized the supposititious royal curative powers. Edward the 
Confessor is thought to have commenced the practice, the first 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 935 

mention of which is found in William of Malmesbury, who wrote 
about eighty years after his reign. Some French writers, how- 
ever, have sought to trace the gift of healing virtue to Clovis, as 
conferred upon the first Christian sovereign of France with the 
holy chrism, and preserved by his successors, asserting that the 
kings of England exercised it only by some collateral right. It 
was a custom to bestow upon the sick person some slight gift as 
a substantial token of the exercise of this healing power. This 
gift was in the time of Edward I. a small sum of money, prob- 
ably as alms ; but in later times a gold coin was given, and per- 
forated for suspension to the neck. Henry YII. gave the angel 
noble, the smallest gold coin in circulation ; and the angel was 
the piece distributed at the ceremony of the Eoyal Touch during 
the succeeding reigns. Charles I. had not always gold to bestow, 
and he sometimes substituted silver, or even brass. After the 
Eestoration the applicants for the healing were so numerous that 
small medals were struck for the special purpose of such distribu- 
tion. These touch-pieces were themselves looked upon as pana- 
ceas against king's evil. Charles II. is recorded to have touched 
not less than ninety thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight ap- 
plicants, according to the registers which were constantly kept. 
James II. on one occasion healed three hundred and fifty persons. 
William III. scoffed at the superstition, and did his best to dis- 
courage it. When he heard that his palace was besieged by a 
crowd of sick people towards the close of Lent, he exclaimed, 
" It is a silly superstition ; give the poor creatures some money, 
and send them away." On another occasion, to escape from the 
importunity of a sick man, he laid his hand upon him, with the 
prayer, " God give you better health and more sense." Under 
Queen Anne, however, the ceremony was restored to all its 
ancient dignity. A Church-otEngland prayer-book published 
in her reign gives a service "At the Healing," in which the fol- 
lowing instructions appear: "Then shall the infirm persons, one 
by one, be presented to the queen upon their knees; and as 
every one is presented, and while the queen is laying her hands 
upon them, and putting the gold about their necks, the chaplain 
that officiates, turning himself to her majesty, shall say the 
words following : ' God give a blessing to this work, and grant 
that these sick persons, on whom the queen lays her hands, may 
recover, through Jesus Christ our Lord.' " Here the touch is at 
once a royal and a religious ceremony. An old man, witness at 
a trial, averred that when Queen Anne was at Oxford she 
touched him (then a child) for the evil; ho added that he did 
not believe himself to have had the evil, but '' his parents were 
poor, and had no objection to a bit of gold." Queen Anno was 
the last sovereign of England who performed the rite, and 



936 CURIOSITIES OF 

among the latest occasions was that when Samuel Johnson, at 
three years of age, was brought from Lichfield to be touched 
with two hundred others. Meanwhile the Pretenders succes- 
sively claimed that as the rightful rulers of England they pos- 
sessed the only genuine touch. "James III." and "Henry IX." 
both had silver touch-pieces struck for them. 

A singular anecdote is recorded of George I., who soon after 
his accession was applied to by a gentleman in behalf of his 
son. The king referred him to the Pretender, as possessing the 
hereditary gift of the Stuarts. The result was this, that the 
son was touched and recovered, and the father became a de- 
voted partisan of the exiled family. The gift was claimed by 
the kings of France as well as by the British sovereigns, and the 
ceremonial, long observed, appears to have been established by 
St. Louis. A great number of persons were healed by Henry 
lY., and the inherent virtue was undiminished in Louis XIY. 
and Louis XY. The ceremony of the touch was even pre- 
scribed in the authorized ceremonial for the coronation of 
Charles X. 

Tower Hill, The hill overlooking the Tower of London, made 
memorable a's a former place of execution for pohtical offenders. 
The members of the Gruild of Our Lady of Eansom (a Catholic 
organization of clergy and laity whose hope is the final conver- 
sion of the English people to Catholicism), besides paying an 
annual visit to the tombs of British martyrs at Canterbury and 
Westminster, make a pilgrimage to the gardens on the brow of 
Tower Hill every May 8, seeking out the spot where Sir Thomas 
More and Bishop Fisher were executed. Formerly these pil- 
grimages were made with much pomp and pageantr3^ But the 
antagonism of No-Popery Protestantism was aroused, and since 
1894 they have been conducted more quietly. Here is the ac- 
count of the affair in that year as given by the Daily Graphic 
on May 10 : 

" The gates of the Tower close at half-past four, and shortly 
after that time little groups of pilgrims began to gather round 
the square place in the grass where the scaffold once stood, and 
lilies and lilac and iris, in wreaths and crosses and loose bunches, 
began to bloom vividly upon the gray granite stones. A few 
children loitering about the garden came up wonderingly to 
watch, and outside the palings of the garden the Tower Hill 
proletariat, rather draggle-tailed and down at heel, looked on at 
the curious ceremonies with feelings which hesitated between 
amusement and disapproval. The ceremony was brief, — a few 
short addresses by Father Dalton and Father Fletcher setting 
forth the reasons why the saints and martyrs, Blessed John 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



937 



Fisher and Blessed Thomas More, should be honored in their 
deaths as in their lives, and, following this, a space for silent 
prayer. The pilgrims, gentle and simple, went down on their 
knees upon the stones and remained so in prayer for some 
moments. When the prayers were over, the little gathering of 
the faithful stooped down and kissed the stones, and a few of 
them threw single flowers upon the heap which already bloomed 
there. A few words were spoken by Mr. Drummond, the secre- 
tary of the Guild of Eansomers, and then the meagre assembly 
went away. In the evening a triumphal service was held at the 
Church of the Martyrs in Great Prescot Street." 

Towers of Silence. The burying-places of the Parsees in 
Bombay, India. 

" Thou shalt not defile the earth," was one of the teachings of 
Zoroaster. Therefore no dead Parsee is laid into mother earth, 
to taint her with his corruption. His body is exposed in the 
open air to vultures, ravens, or even dogs. In the Towers of 




Towers of Silence. 



Silence, just outside Bombay, this method of burial reaches its 
most elaborate form. There are six in all. Five are placed to- 
gether. One stands apart, for here the bones of notorious crim- 
inals lie crumbling in eternal separation from those of their 
fellow-believers who have died in good repute. The word 
" tower" is perhaps a misnomer. Though four hundred and fifty 
yards in diameter, they are not more than eighteen or twenty in 
height. They are made of carefully joined blocks of granite, 
plastered all over with a white cement. Each is surrounded by 
a shallow, dry moati There is one narrow stone bridge or cause- 
way, which leads from the ground to the small square door 
through which the body is taken. 

The top of the tower, forming the platform on which the 
bodies are laid, is quite hidden by a parapet that surrounds it. 



938 CURIOSITIES OF 

And on this parapet, motionless themselves as stone, with their 
bare heads sunk in their bodies, perch the vultures, in one close, 
unbroken rank! Facing inward, there they rest, silent and still 
as is all around them, till the white-robed bearers of the dead 
place the corpse upon the floor before them. Then all swoop 
down. 

The arrangement of the platform is curious. The surface is 
divided into three concentric circles of shallow receptacles for 
the dead; between each circle and between each receptacle is a 
narrow pathway for the bearers, and in the centre is the grated 
opening to the well, down which are thrust the dry bones of the 
dead. These three rings represent the three ma-xims of Zoro- 
aster, " Good acts, good words, good thoughts." The outer 
ring, that lies next the parapet, is for the bodies of men, repre- 
senting "good acts;" the next, those of women, "good words;" 
and the last, the smallest circle round the well itself, is for the 
little children, who represent "good thoughts." 

No other persons than the duly appointed bearers of the dead 
ever enter the building. Neither priest nor layman may approach 
nearer than a distance of ten or fifteen yards. 

When a body is brought for burial the mourners accompany 
it to the house of prayer, an old stone building, surrounded by 
open colonnades, in the garden outside the towers. Within all 
is dim and still. The cool air is heavy w4th the scent of sandal- 
wood, for here the sacred fire forever burns, tended day and 
night by a watchful priest, whose mission it is to feed the holy 
flame with perfumed precious woods. Solemn prayers are said 
over the deceased, and the body is then taken out by two carriers 
to be laid on the platform on the tower. 

Meanwhile the mourners must remain in the flre temple, with 
heads devoutly bent in prayer, until the skeleton lies bleaching 
on the sunny summit of the tower. 

Thus they do not see the sudden swoop of the birds upon the 
corpse, the tearing of the flesh by bloody beaks, the entire sick- 
ening details. 

A fortnight later the same men that carried in the corpse 
revisit the tower, and, with a kind of tongs, place the dry and 
separated bones in the large central well. 

This well is filled with chemicals, to kill any impurity that 
may arise from the incessant flow of blood and for the destruc- 
tion of osseous matter. Furnished with subterraneous passages, 
it is supposed to communicate mysteriously with the other world 
and afford an easy transit to the regions of the blessed. 

Town and Gown Rows. Quarrels and fights between the 
undergraduates of Oxford College and the townspeople of Oxford 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 939 

still occur periodically under this name, the favorite time being 
November 5 (Guy Fawkes's Day), but they are very mild sur- 
vivals from the bloody brutalities of the past. It might be 
supposed that, inasmuch as the wealth and prosperity of the 
city arose out of and depend upon the presence of the uni- 
versity within its walls, the citizens would regard the gownsmen 
as their most substantial friends. But it has never been so at 
any period. Class jealousy has been stronger even than self- 
interest ; and not even the danger, more than once imminent, of 
the whole scholastic body migrating to Northampton or to Stam- 
ford, and condemning the streets of Oxford to a perpetual long 
vacation, could suffice to make the municipal body regard their 
guests in any other light than as an alien army of occupation, 
whose money it was good to take, and whose presence, therefore, 
must be endured. Not that the fault lay altogether with the 
citizens. There is an insolence inherent, it would seem, in the 
student-hfe, whether English, Spanish, or German.. The Ger- 
man bursch terms the whole non-academic world Philistines, 
and his fellows at Oxford or Cambridge regard it in much the 
same light ; a feeling which the other party is not slow to de- 
tect, and does not fail- to return in its own fashion. For this 
reason, perhaps, more than any other, when the University of 
Oxford clung to what was left of Eomanism, the town was 
Puritan ; when the university was in arms for the king, the 
townsmen were almost unanimously Eoundheads ; when the uni- 
versity pronounces for Conservatism, the town feels it a point 
of honor to return two Eadicals. 

In mediaeval times the ill will between the two classes was 
fomented by the claim of the students to be exempted as clerks 
from trial before the ordinary (tribunals. This was intolerable 
to the townsmen, who thought that the gownsmen would find 
more lenient judgment in the court of the chancellor than in that 
of the mayor. 

Now and again a tavern row between scholars and townsmen 
widened into a general broil, and the academical bell of St. 
Mary's vied wnth the town bell of St. Martin's in clanging to 
arms. The rustics from the villages round would flock in to help 
the citizens against the detested scholars, the latter in their 
turn would pour out fully armed into the streets, and the aff'rays 
frequently ended in many wounded and a few killed on both 
sides. (See St. Scholastioa.) 

Trafalgar Day. The anniversary of the great naval victory 
won in Trafalgar Bay by Lord Nelson over the combined French 
and Spanish fleets, October 21, 1805. This eff*ectually blasted 
all Napoleon's hopes of invading England. In the heat of the 



940 CURIOSITIES OF 

conflict Nelson on the deck of his flagship received his death- 
wound, and lived just long enough to know that he had gained 
his last and greatest victory. Trafalgar Day was long cele- 
brated at the Portsmouth dockyard and other naval stations of 
Great Britain by dinners and speeches and by decorating all 
the Trafalgar ships afloat with wreaths of laurel at the mast- 
head, bowsprit-points, and yard-arm ends. On the Victory the 
spot where Nelson fell and the place in the cockpit where he died 
were similarly decorated, and over the steering-wheel were in- 
scribed on a scroll the words of Nelson's signal to his fleet: 
"England expects every man to do his duty." But even these 
local celebrations had fallen into desuetude when in 1896 the 
Navy League of Liverpool and Canada revived the commem- 
oration on a larger scale. They obtained permission to decorate 
the Nelson column in Trafalgar Square, London, by encircling 
it from capital to base with a monster roping of laurel and bay 
leaves. On the main ledge at the base of the pillar was a 
twelve-foot wreath, and numerous other wreaths were grouped 
around, ofl'erings from the commander-in-chief, ofiicers, and men 
of the old Victory, also from the Foudroyant, the Neptune, and 
the Excellent, from the Navy League of Liverpool and Canada, 
from the Malta Branch of the Navy League, and from descend- 
ants of Nelson's ofiicers and men. The square and its neighbor- 
hood were thronged all day long, and after nightfall were un- 
comfortably packed. Crowds also visited St. Paul's Cathedral, 
where during the morning wreaths were placed on Nelson's 
tomb in the crypt, and the Museum of the United Service 
Institution, w^here a special display of Nelson's relics was made 
during the day. A large number of lectures on the navy and 
on the necessity of preserving its efficiency were delivered in 
various parts of London by members of the League, this being 
one of the practical measures included in the celebration of the 
day. Naval clubs and naval men generally celebrated Trafalgar- 
Day dinners in London and elsewhere. All through the country 
Nelson's monuments were decorated, and at Portsmouth the old 
Victory was hung more elaborately than ever before with gar- 
lands and festoons of laurel and boughs of evergreen. A large 
cross was deposited in the place in the cockpit where the hero 
fell. On board the old Foudroyant, then lying at Cardifl", the 
famous signal was run up, "England expects every man to do 
his duty." 

At Montreal, Canada, Nelson's monument in the Jacques- 
Cartier Square was decorated with flowers, amid which were 
displayed both the Union Jack and the tricolor. 

" London, October 24. — Last winter, when everj^body in Eng- 
land surrendered himself to bhnd rage against the German 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 941 

Emperor, and the memorable step of mobilizing a special ser- 
vice squadron was taken, the people who feel a special interest 
in strengthening the British Navy took advantage of the popu- 
lar feeling to arrange that hereafter Trafalgar Day should be 
celebrated as a national patriotic anniversary. As the date 
drew near, the government tried all it could quietly to discour- 
age the thing, but the enthusiasts insisted, and, considering the 
absence of organization and the official cold water, Wednesday's 
celebrations throughout the island were really very creditable. 
Unhappily, however, no amount of British protestations could 
avail to prevent the French from remembering that Trafalgar 
was their defeat, and, not unnaturally, they asked why on earth, 
this year of all others, this piece of ancient history should be 
so violently revived, especially as the English are just now pro- 
fessing an exceptional anxiety to establish cordial relations with 
France. It has been an up-hill task for the English papers to 
explain the psychology of this paradox, and Paris still only half 
accepts their plea that John Bull is really such an ingenuous, 
simple-minded creature that he blunders into these embarrassing 
performances through sheer mental awkwardness. As the Con- 
tinental situation stands, it was undoubtedly the most inoppor- 
tune thing imaginable, but perhaps its effect in stimulating pop- 
ular feeling here counterbalances any harm it may have done 
across the Channel." (Harold Frederic, in New York Times, 
October 25, 1896.) 

Transfiguration, Feast of the. The anniversary of the 
Transfiguration, when Christ ascended Mount Tabor with his 
three favorite disciples, Peter, James, and John, and displayed 
himself to them in his glory, ia kept in the Greek and Latin 
Churches on August 6. It is not set dow^n in the English Church. 
This festival was probably initiated in the early ages, but it did 
not obtain much position in the Western calendar until 1457, 
when Pope Calixtus decreed that it should thenceforth be kept 
in commemoration of the successful defence of Belgrade, Mo- 
hammed II. having abandoned the siege of that place on August 
6 and removed a cloud from Europe. 

A little chapel dedicated to the Transfiguration caps the 
highest peak of Mount Athos in Greece, where a great annual 
service is performed on the recurrence of the festival. The 
scene is thus described by Tozer : " As we approached from the 
east we first heard the sound of chanting from within the 
chapel, and when we came round the platform in front a scene 
appeared which I shall never forget. Distinctly seen in the 
moonlight were the weird, ghostly figures of the monks, closely 
wrapped in their gowns, with long black ^ beards and mushroom 



942 CURIOSITIES OF 

locks, some sitting close to the little window of the chapel, where 
the service was going on, some lying about in groups, like the 
figures of the three apostles in Kaphael's picture of the Trans- 
figuration ; and on going about to difi"erent points we could see 
them lying relieved against the white rocks, or dimly seen in 
the dark shadows, themselves a shadowy band. There were 
about sixty of them, besides a number of Eussian pilgrims. At 
intervals, as we sat there, the priest came out arrayed in gor- 
geous vestments and swung the incense about us. The vigil 
lasted the whole night." 

Tree, Fete of the. (Sp. Fiesta del Arbol) A Spanish holi- 
day devoted to tree-planting, evidently copied from our Arbor 
Day. It is celebrated annually on March 26. The festival was 
instituted in 1896. The young King Alfonso with the queen 
regent and the ladies of the court proceeded to some grounds 
lying near the village of Hortaleza, about two miles to the east 
of Madrid. There he planted a pine sapling. Two thousand 
children selected from the Madrid schools followed his example. 
Grold medals commemorative of the event were distributed among 
them. The inscription runs, " First Fete of the Tree, instituted 
in the reign of Alfonso XIII., 1896." The school-boys who 
planted the saplings are taken periodically by their school- 
masters to note the progress of their respective trees, and are 
encouraged to foster tree-planting in their country. 

Trinity Sund-ay. The Sunday after Whitsuntide, or fifty- 
seven days after Easter, specially devoted to the commemoration 
of the mystery of the Trinity. The feast is not of very early 
origin, and its adoption by the universal Church is still more 
recent. Stephen, Bishop of Liege, about 620 had an ofiice drawn 
up relating to the my.stery of the Trinity, which made its way 
into other churches. A decretal of Alexander II. in the Corpus 
Juris informs us that some churches kept this feast on the Sun- 
day before Whitsuntide, others on the Sunday before Advent, but 
that it was not kept at all in Eome, since every day the Trinity 
was praised and worshipped. Nevertheless when the doctrine 
of the Trinity was attacked by the Arians the Church thought 
it right to fix a special day in its honor. In 1334 John XXII. 
ordered its observance by the whole Church on the Sunday suc- 
ceeding Whitsunday. Previous to this time it had been intro- 
duced into England by St. Thomas a Becket, and it still retains a 
place in the Anglican calendar. 

The records of Lambeth, the palace of the Archbishop of 
Canterbury, show that great expenses were formerly incurred 
for the due celebration of Trinity-tide. The festivities began on 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 943 

Trinity Even, and concluded on Trinity Tuesday. " It is still 
a custom of ancient usage in London," Hone tells us, " for the 
judges and law-officers of the crown, together with the Lord 
Mayor and Common Council, to attend divine service at St. 
Paul's Cathedral and hear a sermon which is always preached 
there on Trinity Sunday by the Lord Mayor's chaplain. At the 
first ensuing meeting of the Common Council it is usual for that 
body to pass a vote of thanks to the chaplain for such sermon, 
and order the same to be printed at the expense of the corpora- 
tion, unless, as has sometimes occurred, it contained sentiments 
obnoxious to their views." 

Aubrey mentions in his " Miscellanies" (1714, p. 49) that there 
was an old custom in Wiltshire upon Trinity Sunday, in remem- 
brance of a donation made by King Athelstan, to ring the bell, 
and for a young maiden to carry a garland to church, which she 
gave to a young bachelor with three kisses ; he then put the gar- 
land upon her neck and gave her three kisses. The ceremony 
was considered symbolic of the Trinity. 

In Carnarvonshire, Wales, " a very ancient custom," says Pen- 
nant, " is still observed on Trinity Sunday. The offerings of calves 
and lambs which happen to be born with the JSfod Beuno, or 
mark of St. Beuno, — a certain natural mark in the ear, — have 
not yet entirely ceased. They are brought to the church (but 
formerly to the monastery) of Clynnok Yaur on Trinity Sunday, 
and delivered to the churchwardens, who sell and account for 
them, depositing the money in a great chest, called Cyff St. 
Beuno, made of one oak, and secured with three locks. From 
this, the Welsh have a proverb for attempting any very difficult 
thing, 'You may as well try to break open St. Beuno's chest.' 
The little money resulting from the sacred beasts or casual offer- 
ings is applied either to the relief of the poor or in aid of repairs." 
(Tennant : Tour through Worth Wales, 1781, vol. ii. p. 210.) 

Trooping the Colors. A military ceremonial which is wit- 
nessed to perfection only in London and on the queen's birth- 
day, May 24. The scene is St. James's Park, to which admis- 
sion is granted by tickets. About nine o'clock a strong body 
of the Household troops, infantry, make their appearance on 
the parade-ground and are posted, at some six paces from one 
another, all round the vast square, each side of which is nearly 
a quarter of a mile in length. At half-past nine appear the 
troops selected to represent each regiment of the brigade of 
Foot Guards, followed by representative cavalry from the Life- 
Guards. At a little after ten the Prince of Wales, in his uniform 
as colonel of the Life-Guards, with other members of the royal 
family and distinguished army generals, makes his appearance. 



944 CURIOSITIES OF 

After the preliminary saluting, the officer commanding the 
parade gives a signal to the senior drum-major, who immediately 
turns round to the bands and gives the command to "Troop!" 
Three slowly given strokes of the bass drum follow, succeeded 
by a roll of the side drums, crescendo and diminuendo. As the 
sound of the rolling dies away, the drum-major, in a loud voice, 
gives the command, " Slow March ;" and the combined bands, 
playing a stately march, parade slowly from one end of the line 
to the other, countermarching at the other side of the parade, 
and, after a brief pause, returning to their original position in 
quick time. 

As they cease playing, the escort for the color is called by a 
pecuhar beat of the drum performed by a drummer standing on 
the extreme right of the line. Then a captain, a lieutenant, and 
a company of men advance from the right of the line, and, pre- 
ceded by the bands playing the "British Grenadiers," proceed to 
the spot where the State Color is in waiting. Here the escort 
halts, the sergeant-major takes the color, a handsomely embroid- 
ered banner, and advances towards the lieutenant. The escort 
then presents arms, and, after saluting the color, the lieutenant 




H 



j'^/* 

i^'- 



Teooping the Colors. 



sheathes his sword, and receives the color from the sergeant- 
major. The latter then draws his sword, and salutes the color 
also, the bands playing " God Save the Queen," and the prince 
and the troops also saluting. The salute finished, the line shoul- 
ders arms, and the escort marches in slow time, preceded by the 
bands playing the " Grenadiers' March," to the left of the line. 
Arrived there, the bands cease playing, and the captain, followed 
by the lieutenant with the color, proceeds along the front of the 
line, while the men forming the escort file along the rear. At 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 945 

the same time, the troops once more present arms, and the bands 
resume playing until the color and its escort reaches its place at 
the right of the line. When this ceremony is completed, the 
whole of the troops march past in slow and quick time, and the 
cavalry trots past, the bands plaj^ing the parade march of each 
corps as it passes the saluting-point. Then the whole line ad- 
vances in review order, gives a royal salute, and the " trooping" 
is finished. (Chambers's Journal, April 8, 1882.) 

Tulabhara. A curious Hindoo ceremony which consists in 
ascertaining the weight of some important personage in gold or 
spices or grain and distributing that weight in charity. It is 
only the very wealthiest persons, of course, who can afford the 
gold. The ceremony is performed but once in his lifetime. The 
Antiquary for June, 1885 (vol. xi. p. 275), records that the Maha- 
rajah of Travancore submitted in the early part of that year to 
be weighed against a mass of pure gold, which was then dispensed 
in charity. This custom is one of great antiquity, and is said to 
be traceable in Travancore to the fourth century. The Maha- 
rajah weighed a little over nine stone. The Brahmins, it is said, 
wished to defer the ceremony, in the hope that the Maharajah 
might more nearly approach the weight of his father, who did 
not undergo the rite until forty-seven years old, when he weighed 
fourteen and three-quarters stone. 

Tynwald Day. The great annual holiday and legal day of 
the Isle of Man, whereon the people and their representatives 
and governors meet on Tynwald Hill, an artificial mound in 
the heart of the island, for the promulgation of their laws, the 
reading of their constitution, and general festivity. Its ancient 
date was that of Midsummer Day. It is now fixed on July 5, a 
change that may be accounted for by the difference between 
Old and New Style. As the direct lineal descendant of the 
Althing day or days in the valley of the Loberg at Thingvellir, 
Iceland, Tynwald Day is another connecting link between the 
little Manx nation and the Sea-kings of the Sagas. The Althing 
continued in force in Iceland until its legal abolition in 1800. 
Thingvellir, the meeting-place, is a lava island, surrounded by a 
narrow stream, bounded by overhanging walls cut deep with 
fissures, and standing in the heart of a vast amphitheatre of 
dark hills and great jokulis tipped with snow. There is no 
such natural mount of laws in the Isle of Man, but, ages ago, 
an artificial mount was raised, not of the oval shape of the 
Loberg at Thingvellir, but circular, bounded by a wall and as- 
cended by flights of steps cut into the turf In all its essentials 
the ceremony of Tynwald is similar to that of the old Althing, 

60 



946 CURIOSITIES OF 

and the constitution of Man is almost identical with that of 
Iceland. 

The Isle of Man is a dependency of the crown of England, 
and its legislature consists of three estates : the lord, repre- 
sented by his governor ; the council, a sort of house of lords, 
composed of representatives of both church and state ; and the 
house of keys, consisting of twenty-four delegates elected by 
the people. The two chambers, council and keys, sit sometimes 
in joint session, presided over by the governor, and are then 
known as the Tynwald court. This is the supreme legislative 
assembly, and when a public measure has received its assent it 
is called an act of Tynwald. Before the act can become law, 
however, it is submitted to the crown for formal sanction, and 
this being obtained it is promulgated on Tynwald Hill in the 
eve of the day, and in presence of the whole congregation of the 
people. 

Tynwald Hill is the centre of a grass-plat that is now bounded 
by inns and small houses, but was, no doubt, at one time as 
solitary as the plains of Thingvellir, which are broken only by 
the little church that stands near. 

The legal ceremony of Tynwald Day is still quite primitive, 
thanks to the precise instructions which have been handed down 
in the lex scripta of the Isle of Man, as given for law to Sir 
John Stanley in 1417. " This," says the record, " is the consti- 
tution of old time, how you shall be governed on the Tynwald 
day. First, you shall come hither in your royal array, as a 
king ought to do, by the prerogatives and royalties of the land 
of Manne. And upon the hill of Tynwald sit in achaire covered 
with a royal cloath and cushions, and your visage unto the east, 
and your sword before you, holden with the point upward. Your 
barons in the third degree sitting beside you, and your beneficed 
men and your deemsters before you sitting, and your clarke, 
your knights, your esquires and yeomen about you in the third 
degree ; and the worthiest men in your land to be called in 
before your deemsters, and you will ask anything of them, and 
to hear the government of your land and your will ; and the 
commons to stand within the circle of the hill, with three 
clarkes in their surplices. And your deemsters shall make call 
on the coroner of Glenfaba, and he shall call on all the coroners 
of Man, and their yardes in their hands, with their weapons on 
them, either sword or axe ; and the moares, that is, to wit, of 
every sheading. Then the chief coroner, that is the coroner of 
Glenfaba, shall make affence, upon paine of life and lyme, that 
no man make any disturbance or stirr in the time of Tynwald, 
or any murmur or rising in the king's presence, upon paine of 
hanging and drawing; and then to proceed in your matters, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 947 

whatsoever you have to do, in felonie or treason, or other mat- 
ters that touch the government of your land of Manne." 

Such is the ceremony observed down to this day, with only 
sucli changes of procedure as the slight differences of constitu- 
tion have rendered necessary. 

No better authority than that of Hall Caine can be quoted for 
a description of the day exactly as it is celebrated nowadays. 
The article quoted from appeared in the London Graphic. July 5, 
1890 : 

" Prayer is first said in the church of St. John, which stands 
on the east margin of the green, and then a procession is 
formed from the church to the mount, beginning with the con- 
stables, the coroners, and captains of parishes, succeeded by the 
clergy of the island, the members of the house of keys, and 
ending with the council, whereof the two deemsters, the attor- 
ney-general, the lord bishop, and the governor are a part. On 
arriving at the hill, the governor and the bishop take their seats 
on the summit, with the council on the first step below, the 
keys on the second step, the constables on the third, and the 
general assembly of the people in a throng beyond the wall that 
bounds the lowest ring. Then, with his face to the east and the 
sword of state held before him, the governor begins the Tyn- 
wald by calling on the chief coroner of the island to ' fence' the 
court, a solemnizing and hallowing ceremony, similar in purpose 
to that of the bishop's opening prayer at the Loberg, and prom- 
ising pains and penalties to such as ' do bawl or quarrel, lye, lean, 
or sit.' Then the coroner gives in his wand of office, for his 
term expires on Tynwald Day, and his successor is appointed at 
the nomination of the governor, and takes an oath administered 
by the elder deemster. After that the acts of Tynwald are 
read, or their titles recited, by the deemster in English, and by 
the senior coroner in Manx. This, with certain other formali- 
ties, constitutes the business of Tynwald, which concludes with 
the return of the procession to the chapel, where the laws that 
have been promulgated are signed and attested by the governor, 
council, and keys. 

" Thereafter the mount and its green are given up to the 
people for their annual fair, and the proceedings are of a mixed 
and various sort, for Tynwald Day is not only the little nation's 
legal day, but its day of general holiday, and as such is as much 
looked forward to and zealously preserved, at least so far as 
concerns its recreative functions. The Manx people come to 
Tynwald from north, south, east, and west, and there the man 
from Andreas meets the man from Malew, and the man from 
Braddan meets the man from Michael. 

"In old times the powers of Tynwald over life and death ap- 



948 * GumosiTiEs OF 

pear to have been absolute, and equal in all respects to martial 
law. No jury was necessary to a capital conviction on a charge 
of treason ; and in this respect, among others, we recognize the 
connection which Mr. Gladstone mentioned between the Isle of 
Man and Scandinavia. Down to comparatively recent times it 
was within the power of the Logsogumadur, or speaker of the 
Althing, to try even capital charges without jury, wheresoever 
he might be, and under whatsoever conditions, — walking, riding, 
at home, or on a journey. In like manner no inquest by a 
deemster was necessary to the death-sentence of a man who 
rose against the governor on his seat on Tynwald. It was also 
in old times a common right of the people to present petitions 
at the Tynwald, a common privilege of persons unjustly pun- 
ished to appeal against judgment, and a common prerogative of 
outlaws to ask for the removal of their outlawry. No doubt 
all these ancient powers still exist, though they are now never 
exercised, and have rarely, if ever, been asserted since the time 
of Bishop Wilson, serenest of saints and most despotic of tyrants. 
Exactly the same powers, privileges, and prerogatives appear to 
have existed in Iceland down to the abolition of the annual 
meeting at Thingvellir at the beginning of this century." 



u. 

Uphalie Day. An ancient festival on January 29, the 
twenty-fourth night after Christmas (Old Style), which marked 
the close of the Yule-tide season. 

The Aiitiquary for March, 1889, notes its celebration in that 
year at Lerwick : " At nine o'clock a large number of mas- 
queraders, representing all sorts of characters, assembled at the 
Market Cross, at which a great crowd had gathered. Here over 
a hundred torches were served out, and the masqueraders, falling 
into procession, marched through the principal thoroughfares of 
the town." 

Urban, St., Pope and martyr. He succeeded Pope Calixtus 
in the year 223, and reigned about seven years. The exact date 
and method of his martyrdom are unknown. His festival. May 
25, which may be the anniversary of his death, was celebrated 
in France with particular devotion in the sixth century. His 
body was found, in 821, with that of St. Cecilia, in an old church 
dedicated to St. Urban on the Appian Eoad, near the place of 
his reputed first sepulture, the cemetery of St. Pretextatus. Pope 
Paschal translated it into the church of St. Cecilia. The mon- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 949 

astery of St. Urban, near Joinville, France, has a body which is 
claimed to be this one, sent to the monks of St. Germanus by 
Pope Nicholas I. in 862. But Papebrooke is at some pains to 
show that this is the body of another saint of the same name. 

St. Urban fares ill, especially in Germany, if his festival be 
not a fair day. " Upon St. Urban's Day," says Aubanus, " all 
the vintners and masters of vineyards sit at a table, either in the 
market stand, or in some other open and public place, and, cover- 
ing it with fine drapery, and strewing upon it green leaves and 
sweet flowers, place upon the table the image of the holy bishop ; 
and then, if the day be fair, they crown the image with great 
store of wine ; but if the weather prove unpleasant and rainy 
(believing that the saint has withdrawn his protection), they cast 
mire and puddle water upon it, persuading themselves that if 
that day be fair and calm, their grapes, which then begin to 
flourish, will be good that year ; but if it be stormy and tem- 
pestuous, they will have a bad vintage." 

St. Paul and St. Yincent Terrier are also invoked by vintners. 
There is an old Latin saying, " Vicenti festo, si sol radiet, memor 
esto," which the French translate into a proverb that may be 
Englished thus : 

If St. Vincent's Day be fine, 
'Twill be a famous year for wine. 

Ursula, St., patroness of young girls, especially school-girls, 
and of educational institutions. Her festival is on October 21, 
the date of her martyrdom with eleven thousand companions. 
According to the legend, she was the daughter of Dunnat, King 
of Cornwall, and was famous for her beauty, her learning, and 
her virtue. So when Conan, a Scotch prince, a Christian serving 
in the army of Maximus, was appointed by that Emperor King 
of Armorica, or Little Britain, he sent deputies to demand 
Ursula in marriage, with the further request that she should 
bring with her as many young women as would bear her com- 
pany and become the wives of the Christian Britons who had 
followed him to Armorica. So the princess with eleven thousand 
other virgins set sail from London. But a storm carried them 
towards the Ehine. Opposite Cologne the ships were captured 
by the Huns, and as the maidens, incited by St. Ursula, refused 
to sacrifice their virginity, they were barbarously massacred. 
This was in 383. 

Many attempts have been made by sceptics to rationalize the 
legend by minimizing the number of the virgin martyrs. Ac- 
cording to one guess, this number may have been eleven. Their 
massacre, it is conjectured, was commemorated in an inscription 
running thus : 



950 CURIOSITIES OF 

YESYLA ET XI MM YY 

which read rightly would signify Ursula et undecim martyres 
virgines, or " Ursula and eleven virgin martyrs." An ignorant 
translator read millia instead of martyres, and so multiplied by 
one thousand the number of victims. This explanation is simple 
and plausible enough. Nothing prevents the characters MM 
from meaning millia (" thousands") instead of martyres (" mar- 
tyrs"). But it has not met with unqualified approval. 

Another suggestion reduces the total number of martyrs to 
two. It runs in this wise : It was a frequent usage, when the 
family was numerous, to give to the children a name that should 
denote the order of their birth. The first was thus called Pri- 
mus, the second Secundus, and so on. Two of these praenomens 
have survived. To this day the names of Septimus and Octavius 
are not rare. Now, Septimus means " seventh" and Octavius 
" eighth." The eleventh child would then take the name Un- 
decimus, and if it was a girl the form would be Undecim a. The 
eleventh child might be regarded as the pet of the house, — the 
" baby." Undecima then would become Undecimilla, a diminu- 
tive form of the name. 

St. Ursula might have had for a companion a young girl of 
this name. Now, in place of Ursula et Undecimilla it would 
have been easy to read Ursula et Undecimillia (" eleven thou- 
sand"), whence the legend of eleven thousand virgins could have 
arisen. As letters were never doubled in writing, the error is 
easily explained; it becomes altogether probable if the story 
of the martyr Ursula was handed down by tradition. It would 
sufiice that the narrator, or even the writer, was ignorant of 
this name of Undecimilla, which was perhaps very rare, and so 
transformed it into undecimillia. 

Still a third : 

Baring-Gould in " The Lives of the Saints" and in " Curious 
Myths of the Middle Ages" identifies St. Ursula with the god- 
dess Isis, the Norse Freya, and the Thuringian Horsel. In 
Thuringia she was said to live in the Horselberg, surrounded by 
her thousand maidens, and by Marten and Seelen, " spirits" and 
" souls," which accompanied her everywhere. 

Tacitus tells us that a ship was carried about in the festivals 
of Isis. Now, Horsel sailed about the blue heavenly seas in her 
silver ship, seeking her husband. She Avas, in fact, the moon- 
deity, accompanied by her train of stars. 

Not only is Ursula an obvious corruption of Horsel, but the 
names of two of her companions are given as Martha and Saula, 
which look like less obvious corruptions of Marten and Seelen. 
A still more remarkable coincidence kinning Ursula to Isis and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 951 

Horsel is the fact that in the Middle Ages there grew up a curi- 
ous custom of founding confraternities or guilds in Germany 
called " the Skiffs of St. Ursula." The symbol of the confra- 
ternity was a boat, which was carried about in public processions. 
But St. Ursula's skiff was a purely imaginary vessel, which every 
member of the guild had to help load with prayers, masses, pen- 
ances, and good works for the general good. To this day a relic 
of the custom survives in the Ommegang at Brussels, and in a 
similar festival at Boulogne, in which ships are drawn by horses 
through the town. 

Now, it is quite possible that Christian maidens may have 
been slaughtered by Huns in Cologne. Indeed, the very fact 
that a church dedicated to virgin martyrs existed here at a 
very early date seems to indicate that there had occurred some 
martyrdom of maidens there. But this Mr. Gould thinks is 
absolutely all that can be said in favor of these saints, whom 
popular tradition has enveloped with the attributes and even the 
names of old Teutonic mythological personages. 

So much for the virgins. IS^ow for their remains. These 
to the number of several thousands are preserved in Cologne. 
They were gathered together in the church of St. Ursula, where 
the princess lay canonized, with the story of her tragic fate pic- 
tured on the walls about her. This queer old twelfth-century 
church is one great tomb, the walls being filled in with bones, of 
which glimpses may be had through gratings. In the treasury 
the walls have been adorned with all manner of fantastic devices 
wrought with the martyrs' remains, many of their skulls en- 
closed in silver busts being set in the niches. More of these 
skulls are preserved in a cupboard and enclosed in velvet cases 
wrought with gold thread and studded with gems, the cases open 
at the top to show the blow that cleft or crushed the skull ; one 
of them with wisps of auburn hair still clinging to either side 
of the gaping wound and a row of superb pearls sewn across 
the velvet that covers the mouth. 

It was in the seventh century that the body of St. Ursula her- 
self was recovered. While St. Cunibert was saying mass in the 
church of the Holy Yirgins, he saw a white dove which rested 
on a tomb. He opened it and discovered the remains of St. 
Ursula. He translated them to the abbey of Deutz. January 
28 is observed by the Church as the anniversary of this trans- 
lation. There were no further discoveries till 1106, when the 
walls of the city were being rebuilt. Near the church of St. 
Cunibert the workmen came on a considerable number of bones. 
Yisions assured the workmen that these were the relics of the 
martyred virgins. It is not improbable that the new walls had 
traversed an old burial-ground belonging to the church of St. 



952 CURIOSITIES OF 

Cunibert. But this explanation was too simple to be received 
by the credulous populace. And in fact, trading on this cre- 
dulity, Gerlach, the abbot of Deutz in 1155, made the greatest 
"invention" of all. " It is perhaps one of the most painful his- 
tories of fraud which have ever been recorded," says Mr. Gould. 
" So preposterous is it, that the Jesuit father, De Buck, waxes 
wroth and indignant over it." 

Gerlach did not content himself with digging up all the bodies 
he could find, but he connived at the manufacture of inscriptions 
and tombstones which pretended to give the names of the former 
tenants of the bodies. He also induced a nun named Elizabeth 
to see visions in which appropriate legends were devised for each. 



V. 

Valentine, St. Custom, more potent than any other au- 
thority known to man, has decreed that on St. Valentine's Day, 
which in the Eoman and Anglican calendar falls on February 14, 
young folks of both sexes, and older ones, too, for that matter, 
should exchange missives and epistles, either comic or senti- 
mental, in which the foibles of the receiver or the love of the 
sender are set forth in prose, in verse, and in emblematic picture. 
!N"ow, there is no custom without a reason. But the reason for 
this cannot be found in the life of the good saint who is made to 
indorse the custom with his name. He wrote no love-songs. No 
one rises up to accuse him of casting sheep's eyes on any Roman 
maiden. He was a bishop or Pope of Rome who stood steadfast 
to the faith during the Claudian persecutions, and for that faith 
was cast into jail, where he cured his keeper's daughter of blind- 
ness. Honi soit qui mal y pense. It is the pleasure of Cupid, 
blind himself, to bring upon his votaries a similar blindness, not 
to cure it. 

Kor was there anything, either comic or sentimental, in the 
fate of St. Valentine when the miracle was made known to the 
authorities. They first beat him with clubs and then beheaded 
him. What was left of him is preserved in the church of St. 
Praxedes at Rome, where a gate, now known as the Porta del 
Popolo, was formerly named, in his honor. Porta Yalentini, or 
Valentine's Gate. 

Another Valentine also claims a share in the day, who has as 
little to do with comed}^ or sentiment. He was the bishop who 
healed a son of Craton the rhetorician, and was choked to death 
by a fish-bone. In Italy and Germany they pray to him to cuie 
epilepsy. Either Valentine would be surprised to find himself a 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 953 

lovers' saint, but he has his compensation. Truly spoke Charles 
Lamb to the bishop, "Like unto thee, assuredly, there is no 
mitred father in the calendar; not Jerome, nor Ambrose, nor 
Cyril ; nor the consignor of undipt infants to eternal torments, 
Austin, whom all mothers hate ; nor he who hated all mothers, 
Origen ; nor Bishop Bull, nor Archbishop Parker, nor Whitgift. 
Thou comest attended with thousands and ten thousands little 
Loves, and the air is 

Brush't with the hiss of rustling wings. 

" Singing Cupids are thy choristers and thy precentors, and 
instead of the crosier the mystical arrow is borne before thee." 

In default of any light thrown upon the custom by biography, 
etymologists and lexicographers, antiquarians and hagiologists, 
have drawn more or less satisfactory explanations from their 
special studies. 

Hearken first to the etymologist. He points out that v and g 
were frequently interchangeable in popular speech, and as a 
notable instance produces the words gallant and valiant, which 
both spring from the Latin valens. He then explains that the 
IN'orman word galantin, a lover of the fair sex, or what in these 
slangy days might be called a masher, was frequently written 
and pronounced valantan or valentin. And from these premises 
he concludes that by a natural confusion of names Bishop Yalen- 
tine was established as the patron saint of sweethearts and lovers, 
although he has no real connection, not even an etymological one, 
with that class of beings. 

So far so good. As a guess why St. Valentine became asso- 
ciated with the custom this is plausible, though not convinQing. 
Still, it leaves the origin of the custom as much in the dark as 
ever. 

Try we, therefore, the lexicographer. And, as there is far 
more amusement to be extracted from the ancient than from the 
modern lexicon, let us turn to Bailey's, the first of the great 
English dictionaries (1721). Here we find the following : " Valen- 
tines (in England). About this time of the year — month of Feb- 
ruary — the Birds choose their Mates, and probably thence came 
the Custom of the Young Men and Maidens choosing Valentines, 
or special loving Friends, on that Lay." Pretty and poetical, 
but not entirely satisfactory. So let us turn to the antiquary. 
Francis Douce, in his " Illustrations of Shakespeare" (1807), 
suggests that St. Valentine's Day is the Christianized form of 
the classic Lupercalia, which were feasts held in Pome during 
the month of February in honor of Pan and Juno (hence known 
as Juno Februata), when among other ceremonies it was cus- 



954 CURIOSITIES OF 

tomary to put the names of young women into a box, from 
which they were drawn by the men as chance directed, and that 
the Christian clergy, finding it diflScult or impossible to extir- 
pate the pagan practice, gave it at least a religious aspect by 
substituting the names of particular saints for those of the 
women. 

He buttresses up his opinion by an appeal to the hagiologist. 
This is no less a person than the Eev. Alban Butler, who, in his 
"Lives of the Saints," explains that pastors of the Christian 
Church, '• by every means in their power, worked zealously to 
eradicate the vestiges of pagan superstition ; chiefly by the 
simple process of retaining the ceremonies, but modifying their 
significance ; and substituted, for the drawing of names in honor 
of the goddess Februata Juno, the names of some particular 
saints. But as the festival of the Lupercalia took place during 
February, the 14th of that month, St. Yalentine's Day, was 
selected for this new feast, as occurring about the same time. 
The saints whose names were drawn were proposed for imitation 
to the persons who received the slips of paper whereon they were 
written, and in many religious houses, where this custom still 
prevails, each member of the community preserves his billet 
during the year, as an incitement to imitate the virtues and 
invoke the special intercession of his holy Valentine." 

But see how strong is the old Adam in the hearts of the un- 
regenerate. "Wanton youth was not satisfied to imitate these 
holy fathers and ballot for a ghostly partner in heaven. It 
longed for tangible flesh and blood here on earth, — flesh and 
blood of that delightful variety which has a spice of the devil 
in it (teste many holy men who have fled aghast from its witch- 
eries), and is known as woman. So it went back to something 
like the pagan custom. 

This was at least as early as the fourteenth century, for we 
find these lines in a poem written by John Lydgate in praise of 
Catherine, the wife of Henry Y. : 

Seynte Valentine of custome yeere by yeere 
Men have an usuance, in this regioun, 

To loke and serche Cupides kalendere, 

And chose theyr choyse by grete affeccioun, 
Such as ben move with Cupides mocioun, 

Takyng theyre choyse as they re sort doth falle ; 

But I love oon whiche excelleth alle. 

In the latter part of the sixteenth century the Church, in the 
person of St. Francis de Sales, once more stepped in to sanctify 
the rites of St. Valentine's Day. Again Butler is our authority. 
He tells us how St. Francis " severely forbad the custom of Val. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 955 

entines, or giving Boys in writing the name of Girls to be ad- 
mired and attended on by them ; and, to abolish it, he changed 
it into giving billets with the names of certain Saints, for them 
to honor and imitate in a particular manner." 

But in the end the Boys and the Girls triumphed over the 
Saint. Nay, the Girls triumphed also over the Boys, wrest- 
ing from them their exclusive privilege of choosing mates. In 
France itself it appears that the names of young people of both 
sexes were written out and put into proper receptacles, and 
drawings took place, in which each sex could secure a partner 
from the other, and it was customary for the sentimental bond 
set up by the selection so made to inure for one year and no 
longer, unless, as a sarcastic bachelor observes, " terminated by 
the marriage or death of the parties." During the year ea^b 
stood to the other in the relation of Cavalier and Lady oP 
Beauty, the knight being bound to the honor and defence of 
his fair one, for which she repaid him in smiles and silk favors, 
when silk was obtainable and too much good-natured encourage- 
ment was not strictly forbidden by parents and guardians. 

The same mutuality obtained across the Channel. Misson, 
in his " Travels in England" (1698), tells us that on the eve of 
St. Valentine's Day " an equal number of Maids and Bachelors 
get together, each writes their true or some feigned name upon 
separate billets, which they roll up and draw by way of lots, 
the Maids taking the Men's billets, and the Men the Maids' ; so 
that each of the young Men lights upon a Girl that he calls his 
Yalentine, and each of the Girls upon a young Man which she 
calls hers. By this means each has two Valentines — but the 
Man sticks faster to the Valentine that is fallen to him than to 
the Valentine to whom he is fallen. Fortune having thus di- 
vided the company into so many couples, the Valentines give 
balls and treats to their mistresses, wear their billets several 
days upon their bosoms or sleeves, and this little sport often 
ends in Love. This ceremony is practised differently in differ- 
ent Countries, and according to the freedom or severity of 
Madame Valentine. There is another kind of Valentine, which 
is the first young Man or Woman chance throws in your way in 
the street, or elsewhere," on Valentine's Day itself The latter 
appears at an early date to have been the manner in Scotland, 
if Sir Walter is right in his description of the wooing of the 
Fair Maid of Perth and of Hal of the Wynd. A more notable 
example is Ophelia's song : 

Good morrow, 'tis St. Valentino's Day, 

All in the morn betime, 
And I a maid at your window, 

To be your valentine. 



956 CURIOSITIES OF 

It is evident, therefore, that in Shakespeare's day the custom 
of challenging your valentine had already commenced. The 
challenge consisted simply in saying, " Good morrow, 'tis St. 
Valentine's Day," and he or she who said it first on meeting a 
person of the opposite sex received a present. Later a gallant 
custom enacted that the gentleman alone should give the present, 
but only if he were successfully challenged. This explains good 
Mr. Pepys's anxiety when early on St. Valentine's Day (1664) 
he called at Sir William Batten's and would not go in " till I 
asked whether they that opened the door was a man or a woman, 
and Mingo, who was there, answered a woman, which, with his 
tones, made me laugh ; so up I went, and took Mrs. Martha for 
my Valentine (which I do only for complacency) ; and Sir W. 
Batten he go in the same manner to my wife, and so we were 
very merry." 

It seems also that some element of choice as well as of chance 
had now been introduced into the sport, for a person could wil- 
fully close his or her eyes and refuse to open them until an ap- 
propriate mate arrived. Thus, on next St. Valentine's Day Mr. 
Pepys records that Will Bowyer came to be his wife's valentine, 
" she having (at which I made good sport to myself) held her 
hands all the morning, that she might not see the painters that 
were at work gilding my chimney-piece and pictures in my 
dining-room." 

From the same diarist we get the first record of a drawing or 
illustration as connected with the day. This is under date of 
February 14, 1667 : " This morning came up to my wife's bed- 
side little Will Mercer to be her valentine, and brought her name 
writ upon blue paper, in gold letters, done by himself very pretty ; 
and we were both well pleased with it." Another innovation is 
mentioned under the same date : " I do first observe the draw- 
ing of mottoes as well as of names ; so that Pierce, who drew 
my wife's, did draw also a motto. Her motto was ' most cour- 
teous and most fair,' which, as it may be used for an anagram 
upon each name, might be very pretty." 

And so in the pages of Pepys we trace the bint for the modern 
valentine. It only remained to join the illustration and the 
motto, to enlarge the latter into a verse, original or selected, 
and to give the sender an unlimited choice as to the person or 
persons whom he should favor. Exactly when this union of 
qualities was eff^ected we have no later Pepys to inform us. But 
we know that by the beginning of the present century the new 
method had fully established itself in popular favor. 

In the days of quill pens and dear postage the transmission 
of valentines through the post was an expensive luxury. The 
amorous swains of that period had to content themselves and 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



957 




their idolized fair ones with thick sheets of gilt-edged letter- 
paper, — envelopes had not then come into use, and book postage 
was still unknown, — the first page of each sheet being adorned 
with a gilt Cupid, carefully gummed on, surmounting a few lines, 
the favorite formula announcing in terms still held sacred to St. 
Valentine that because the 

rose is red and the violet > — .':-,: : : -^-_\ 

blue, therefore the sender is 
as sweet as sugar. 

With the reduction of the 
heavy postal charges printed 
valentines gradually came 
into use. They generally 
consisted of a gaudily col- 
ored picture, representing a 
loving couple seated in a 
bower, with a church in the 
distance, and a few lines de- 
scriptive of the tender sen- 
timents of the persons for- 
warding the same. The 
designers of these amatory 

billets seem to have entertained rather singular notions respect- 
ing the proper attire of the ladies and gentlemen of whose feel- 
ings they sought to become the interpreters. The lady was in- 
variably dressed in a scarlet gown, with a blue or green shawl ; 
the gentleman was attired in lavender trousers, yellow waist- 
coat, blue surtout, and green or crimson cravat. The effect thus 
obtained was, as might be imagined, somewhat striking; but 
our fathers and mothers were apparently satisfied with these 
quaint productions. The introduction of the cheap postage of 
tO-day laid the foundation of the present trade in valentines, 
the manufacture of which now constitutes an important branch 
of industrial activity, furnishing, directly or indirectly, employ- 
ment to several thousand persons of both sexes. 

Cheap postage is also responsible for the introduction of the 
comic valentine, that hideous bit of vulgarity sold for a cent in 
the United States and in Great Britain for a penny or a half- 
penny, which still remains one of the tribulations of the day. 
But side by side with this monstrosity grew up the pretty and 
fanciful cards whose use in a modified form has been extended 
also to Christmas and to New Year's. 



The First Printed Valentine. 



Veiled Prophet. An annual pageant performed in St. Louis, 
Missouri, on the first Tuesday in October. It consists of a great 
evening procession through the streets of the city, in which 



958 CURIOSITIES OF 

thousands of maskers take part, many of them seated on 
elaborate floats. The feature of the occasion is Mokanna, the 
Veiled Prophet himself. He wears a long beard, a crown with 
wings, and an elaborate Turkish costume of the finest satin, and 
bears in his hand an incandescent boss. He is surrounded by 
electric lights, fairies, pages, high-priests, sword-bearers, and 
maids of honor. The rest of the masqueraders are a quaint 
mixture of Eastern and Western, modern and ancient, mythology. 
Comus, the Lord of Misrule, Gambrinus, are mingled together in 
defiance of chronology and geography. But the general effect 
is gorgeous, and is enhanced by the fireworks that are let off all 
along the route from the many floats and by the calcium lights 
and other illuminations. The procession concludes with a ball at 
the Merchants' Exchange Hall, where the Veiled Prophet chooses 
and crowns a queen. 

The story of the Veiled Prophet was made familiar to lovers 
of poetry by Moore's "Lalla Eookh," in which it forms an episode. 
Mokanna, however, was not a creation of fancy, but a genuine 
historic character of the eighth century. His name was Hakem 
ben Allah, but he called himself Al-Mokanna ("the Veiled"). 
Having lost one eye from an arrow wound, he wore a thick veil 
to conceal the deformity, and laid claim to be an incarnation of 
the Deity. He had many followers in Arabia, and soon possessed 
himself of a large part of that country, and was acknowledged 
by a number of cities. His influence was retained by many 
devices, such being his skill in magic and legerdemain that his 
tricks passed for miracles. 

Troops were sent against him by the caliph Almahdi, his armies 
were defeated in the field, and he was besieged in a small fortress 
in the south of Arabia. Finding success impossible, and deeming 
escape hopeless, he poisoned his attendants in a banquet and 
leaped into a well or cistern which had been partly filled with 
destructive acids. When the conquerors forced a way into the 
castle they searched in vain for him or his body, the latter having 
been entirely dissolved by the corrosive fluids. The secret was 
discovered by the confession of one who had beheld the prepara- 
tions for suicide; but in some parts of Arabia there are still per- 
sons who believe that Mokanna ascended to heaven. 

Veronica, St. Her festival is celebrated on Shrove Tuesday. 
There are varying accounts concerning this saint. According to 
some, she was the daughter of Salome and the niece of Herod; 
according to others, she was the woman who was healed of an 
issue of blood by touching the hem of Christ's garment. When 
the Saviour was bearing the cross to Calvary, she handed him 
her handkerchief to wipe his face, and ever afterwards Christ's 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 959 

features remained impressed on the cloth. The Emperor Tiberius 
summoned St. Veronica to Eome, that she might heal him of a 
terrible disease, but he died before her arrival there. She is said 
to have subsequently suffered martyrdom with St. Peter and St. 
Paul. Another account makes her go to Europe with Lazarus 
and his sisters and suffer death in Provence or Aquitaine. A 
chapel in St. Peter's at Eome is dedicated to St. Veronica, and 
the face of the Saviour painted on linen is shown there as the 
veritable handkerchief of the legend. In art St. Veronica is 
represented holding the napkin. 

Vessel-Cup, also known as ^Vesley-Cup and Wesley 

Bob. The name is evidently a corruption of " wassail :" but the 
thing is a curious admixture of the old Catholic crib (see Pre- 
SEPio) and the semi-pagan wassail customs. As it survives at 
present in Yorkshire and other parts of rural England, the 
vessel-cup is made of holly and evergreens, like a bower, inside 
which are placed either one or two dolls, adorned with ribbons. 
The whole affair is wrapped in a veil and borne upon a stick 
during Christmas week by children who go from house to house 
singing either the well-known strains of " God rest you, merry 
gentlemen," or a carol beginning, — 

God bless the master of this house, 

The mistress also, 
And all the little children 

That round the table go. 

When they come to a house they uncover the cup, in the ex- 
pectation of some small gratuity. In some localities young girls 
and women are the bearers, as' was formerly the case with the 
wassail-cup. Up to almost the middle of the nineteenth century 
the dolls were known as Advent Images, a name which clearly 
indicated their Catholic origin. They were dressed to represent 
the Virgin and the infant Christ, and were carried in a box with 
a glass lid. This was covered over by a white napkin, and car- 
ried from door to door in the arms of a woman. On reaching a 
house the bearer uncovered the box and sang this carol : 

The first good joy that Mary had, it was the joy of one, 
To see her own son Jesus to suck at her breast-bone. 
It brings tidings of comfort and joy ! 

The next good joy that Mary had, it was the joy of two. 
To see her own son Jesus to make the lame to go. 
It brings, etc. 

The next good joy that Mary had, it was the joy of three, 
To see her own son Jesus to make the blind to see. 
It brings, etc. 



960 CURIOSITIES OF 

The next good joy that Mary had, it was the joy of four, 



To see her own 
It brings, etc 



son Jesus to read the Bible o'er. 



The next good joy that Mary had, it was the joy of five, 



To see her own 
It brings, etc 



son Jesus to make the dead alive. 



To see her own 
It brings, etc 



The next good joy that Mary had, it was the joy of six, 
To see her own 
It brings, etc, 



son Jesus to bear the crucifix. 



The next good joy that Mary had, it was the joy of seven. 



son Jesus to wear the crown of heaven. 



At every house before which the bearers stopped a halfpenny 
was expected, in return for which the giver was allowed to take 
a leaf or a flower, which was carefully preserved as a cure for 
toothache. That household which was not visited was deemed 
in danger of ill luck. An old proverbial expression in Yorkshire 
ran, " As unhappy as the man who has seen no Advent Images." 

It was infinitely more unlucky, however, to withhold the half- 
penny in case the Advent Images came along. 

Viaticum. (Lat., "Provision for a journey," — hence for the 
last journey from this world to the next.) This name is given 
to the communion administered to the dying. In countries 
where Protestantism prevails the consecrated host is carried to 
the bedside by the Catholic priest without public display. But in 
Catholic countries a solemn procession escorts it from the church 
to the door of the patient. At any hour of the day or night this 
procession may be seen traversing the streets. You first hear a 
bell in the distance, and as the sound draws nearer lights begin 
to appear in the windows, and the passers-by slacken their pace 
and presently kneel down. The procession comes by; it is simple 
enough, consisting of a priest, bearing the sacred host in a pyx 
or golden box, with a sort of umbrella held over him (a bal- 
dacchino, as it is called), in token of reverence, a few clerics 
carrying lighted torches, and a crowd of poorly dressed followers 
clustering behind. The crowd swells as it goes, many falling 
into the ranks as they pass by, and making, as it were, a guard 
of honor about the door of the sick person's house. In Naples 
it is customary for any noble or wealthy occupant of a carriage, 
who may happen to meet such a procession, to alight upon the 
spot and give up his carriage to the priest, following it on foot 
himself. At Eome one often sees richly dressed ladies get out of 
their carriages and kneel among the crowd, regardless of dust 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



961 



or mud, as the viaticum is carried past. Similar customs are 
common in all Catholic countries. 

Special state was observed in the older days when the Pope 
himself carried the viaticum to some great personage. 




The Viaticum in Papal Procession. 

In France until the Eevolution, when the viaticum was borne 
to the sick or dying the priest placed himself under a dais. He 
was preceded by a lantern-bearer, a bell-bearer, and a deacon. 
At the tinkhng of the bell all the wayfarers knelt down, and 
horses and carriages stopped in the street. If the patient were 
a person of quality, all the servants and often the master of the 
house provided themselves with torches to receive the priest at 
the threshold. Madame de Sevigne on November 19, 1664, de- 
scribes how the viaticum was borne to Queen Marie Therese, 
then in danger as the result of a confinement : " It was the most 
magnificent and the saddest thing in the world to see the king 
and all his court with tapers and thousands of torches go to seek 
and bring back the Holy Sacrament." One day Louis XV., 
returning from the Palais de Justice, met the viaticum at the 
Pont-Neuf. Descending from his carriage, ho dropped on his 
knees in the mud, and the priest emerging from beneath the dais 
took his seat in the royal carriage amid the acclamations of the 
people. 

In Madrid on EaSter Sunday the host is sent round in one of 
the royal coaches, preceded b}^ bands of music, and escorted by 

61 



962 CURIOSITIES OF 

a body of troops. It stops at the houses of sick persons, and is 
taken in to them. Three priests alight from the carriage, the 
centre one wearing a gold and silver robe, and bearing the con- 
secrated wafer, which, in common Spanish parlance, is called 
Dios, or God. Four assistants carry, by means of four sticks, a 
silken awning over the priests and their sacred charge. The 
centre of the awning sinks a little, and on it rest fresh flowers. 
The royal carriage is of an antique form, of a deep cherry -red, 
with burnished gildings. It is drawn by six grays, with postilion 
and coachman. When the host descends from the carriage, the 
military band plays the Royal March, — played only on such 
occasions and in the presence of royalty. The people at the 
windows throw out flowers and little squares of paper of various 
colors, with grotesque wood-cuts and barbarous verses printed 
upon them. These. aleluy as, as they are called, are the invariable 
accompaniments of processions here, and are thrown out in great 
quantities, thickly strewing the ground, much to the delight of 
the street-urchins, who make collections of them. 

Victor, St., patron of Marseilles, France. A Roman soldier 
in the army of the Emperor Maximian who refused to worship 
heathen gods and with three companions suffered martyrdom at 
Marseilles. Their bodies were thrown into the sea, but, being 
cast ashore, were buried by the Christians in a grotto hewn out 
of a rock. 

After Jerusalem and Rome, Marseilles is claimed by the lovers 
of St. Yictor as the earliest place of Christian worship. It is 
told that at one time as many as five thousand monks lived in 
the rocks and met in the catacombs for prayer. This was in the 
time of St. Cassien. Early in the fifth century, after his Oriental 
wanderings, this remarkable character came to Marseilles, and 
was allowed by the bishop to establish himself in the grotto. 
Finally he was surrounded by imitators of his pietj' and peni- 
tence to the number of thousands. In 420 he built a church and 
a monastery above ground, and also founded a house for women. 
To this church the greater part of the relics of St. Victor were 
transferred, the remainder being conveyed to Paris and laid in a 
chapel dedicated in his honor, which was subsequently enlarged 
and turned into the royal monastery of St. Victor's. 

Saracens destroyed the first abbey of St. Victor in Marseilles. 
Its successor of 1040 suffered also. The building of 1200 re- 
mains, and is a favorite place of pilgrimage for devout Catholics. 
Besides the relics of its eponymic saint, it contains a number 
of hagiological " attractions." Among these are the legendary 
cross on which St. Andrew was crucified, and the equally legen- 
dary tomb of Lazarus, who after his resurrection came to Mar- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 963 

seilles with his sisters about a.d. 40. (See Maries, the Three.) 
The latter is in the chapel of Mary Magdalene in the grotto be- 
neath, where is also preserved a smooth stone known as the seat 
of Lazarus. Its hollowed end forms a basin where Christians 
received baptism, and here, " very ancient and respectable tradi- 
tion" reports, the " sainted bishop and friend of the Saviour of 
men" used to hear confession and administer the sacrament to 
his converts. 

The magnificent tomb of Pope Urban Y., which was one of 
the former glories of the place, disappeared in the Eevolution- 
ary year 1793. Urban in 1361 was head of the abbey, and after 
death he was buried within its walls. His tomb was the shrine 
of the upper church, and had to be protected by an iron grating 
from the indiscreet piety of pilgrims. Many lords, kings, and 
princes have heaped treasure there, and sought intercession for 
their sins. In the Eevolutionary turmoil this monument suffered 
with others. Eecently its remains have been discovered, but not 
the bones. 

The Eevolutionists used the crypts of St. Victor as a prison, 
and confined there their convict galley-slaves. With this century 
restoration began, and in 1804 the upper church was purified and 
restored to sacred use, while in 1822 worship was resumed in the 
poor shorn catacombs. 

In the chapel of Notre-Dame de la Confession is preserved the 
famous Black Virgin, an image vulgarly attributed to St. Luke, 
but evidently of mediaeval date. It has a child on its knee, and 
is darkly stained. The peculiar color, or the uncanny fact that 
the bluest skies darkened and rain fell in torrents whenever the 
Virgin was carried out of doors, or similarly good reasons, pro- 
tected her in the Saracen raids, while during the Eevolutionary 
assaults some faithful monk managed to secrete her in a cottage. 
Crutches and other mementos of the miraculously healed hang 
about her shrine. 

The stories of the Black Virgin's power are voluminous and 
characteristic. One of the most popular legends is that of the 
green candles. A devout maid of the early ages worshipped at 
this shrine until her constancy became proverbial. Arriving 
home in the crypts one morning before four o'clock, the mass 
began and proceeded with her as the only attendant. Coming to 
the next mass, she met grieved and wondering reproof for her 
neglect of the morning service from the priests, who, in turn, 
were amazed by her assurance that she had attended. Ilurt by 
their disbelief, she told them to look for her offering, and surely 
there was a ring she had left on the altar. But they were yet 
only half convinced, until she reminded them tliat at the mass 
green candles had replaced the usual white ones. They again 



964 CURIOSITIES OF 

visited Xotre-Dame de la Confession, and, lo ! the candles were 
all given. And then they knew that the Black Virgin, about 
whom the lights blinked so sleepily, had recognized the piety of 
the earthly virgin and had caused to be celebrated for her solely 
this miraculous mass. 

The Black Virgin is now taken from her underground home 
but one day in the year, the first of the great '' Chandelcur" 
(Candlemas) week or " octave" which affects Marseilles life so 
picturesquely during the early daj^s of February. It is a medi- 
iBval time of cakes and candles and priests and white-robed 
virgins, with nineteenth-century pilgrims swarming the narrow 
streets that meet at the broad earth platform overlooking the 
glorious sea and port and " Old Town" views, and surrounding 
the dark walls of the sacred fortress with its blocked and secretly 
wrought windows, and its flag-decked towers, where great black 
bells turn and swing in the openings against the blue sky. 

" The church entrance, where every species of pitiful deformity 
begs, is approached through an avenue formed by booths for the 
selling of cakes, candles, and souvenirs, and presided over by 
comfortable white-capped old women or beribboned young ones. 
Inside, the church is rapidly filled with chairs, of which every 
comer receives one, in return for a sou, from more smiling gran- 
nies. Forward where the crowd presses about the Black Virgin 
little can be seen but burning tapers and the white gowns of the 
3^oung girls who that morning bore her from the crypts. At 
four o'clock in the morning the initial service of the Chandeleur 
is held amid suffocating crowds, and then is formed the priestly 
procession, which, accompanying the Virgin, winds through the 
subterranean waj's arid up the staircase to the church above, 
where all day the people throng about their Lady in solicitation 
and adoration, and where services are held at intervals until six 
o'clock, when the Virgin is returned to her chapel. 

"The services in the crypts during the remaining days are 
most interesting, — the soft taper lights, the altar richly dressed 
in green, white, and gold, the kneeling multitude,* the passing 
costumes of various religious orders, the tapping response of the 
stone pavement, and, above all, the associations of saints, monks, 
sovereigns, and martyrs, imparting a peculiar fascination. Amid 
such scenes the nineteenth-century bonnets seem incongruous 
and emphasize the sweet propriety of the peasant's native cos- 
tume, when the eye rests on some placid Aries woman in her 
folds of black and white, or an Italian girl from the fishers' quar- 
ter, in nondescript garb, gracefully resting against a pillar, or a 
type from the Catalans, some scarfed Spanish contour poised by a 
happ3^ instinct in one of the balcony-like openings, which forms 
a stone frame. Many of the Chandeleur candles are specially 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 965 

blessed to be burned at sea to allay tempests, and among the 
thousands sold are many green ones in memory of the old 
legend. And a yet older custom still is kept, whereby on de- 
parting from the church every one buys one of the little boat- 
shaped cakes called ' navettes,' which probably originated in 
commemoration of the voyage of Lazarus to Provence." (M. 
K. B., in JSfew York Evening Post, April 17, 1897.) 

Vincent, St., patron saint of Lisbon, Valencia, Saragossa, 
Milan, and Chalons. His festival is celebrated on January 22. 
At the age of twenty he was an ordained deacon. He was de- 
nounced as a Christian together with his bishop, Yalerius. St. 
Vincent proclaimed his faith and defied torture, whereupon the 
proconsul gave him over to terrible tortures. Legend has it that 
angels came down and strengthened him, and that his jailers 
heard their songs and beheld the prison filled with light, and 
were converted. As his spirit could not be conquered by tor- 
ture, the proconsul had him placed on a bed of roses, and every- 
thing was done to ease his pain, in order that he might be seduced 
by luxury. But he expired on his bed of roses, and, according 
to legend, angels bore his soul to glory. His body was thrown 
to wild beasts, but it was untouched and was guarded by a raven. 
Then it was attached to a millstone and thrown into the sea. 
But w^hen the boatmen who had taken the body out returned to 
the shore they found that the body had preceded them. They 
ran away in terror, and the waves hollowed out a grave for the 
corpse. Here it lay for many years, when it was revealed to 
some Christians, who took the remains to Valencia and interred 
them. Some of his relics found their way to Saragossa. It is 
related that when Childebert^laid siege to this city he raised 
the siege on condition that the stole of St. Vincent should be 
given to him. He carried it to Paris and placed it in a church 
which he built. In the year 885 some of the bones of St. Vin- 
cent were translated from Valencia to France and deposited 
in the abbey of Castres. The greater portion of the bones of 
the saint was taken from Valencia by the Christians when 
driven out by the Moors, and deposited on a promontory since 
called Cape St. Vincent. Here ravens are said to have guarded 
the remains. In 1147 Alonzo I. removed these relics to Lisbon 
and placed them in the cathedral. This translation is annually 
commemorated by the Portuguese ; the feast was confirmed by 
Sixtus V. St. Vincent is represented in art as a handsome young 
man, and his proper attribute is a crow or a raven. 

Vincent de Paul, St., founder of the order of the Sisters 
of Charity. His festival is celebrated on July 19. 



966 CURIOSITIES OF 

St. Vincent de Paul was born in Gascony in 1576. At the 
age of twenty he entered the Franciscan order. On a voyage 
from Marseilles to Narbonne he was captured by pirates and 
was sold into slavery at Tunis, but he finally converted his 
master and his wife, and together they made their escape, land- 
ing in France in 1607. Thence he went to Eome, where he was 
intrusted with a mission to the French court, and became almo- 
ner of Queen Marguerite de Yalois. He then set himself to 
work for the relief of prisoners, as well as for the poor and out- 
casts in general, thus gaining the title of the Father of the Poor. 
He died at St. Lazare on the 27th of September, 1660, and was 
buried in the church of that name. The saint was canonized 
in 1737 by Pope Clement XII. Many miracles are reported as 
having been worked at his shrine. 

Vine of the Lord. (It. Vigna di Bio ; Fr. Vigne du Seigneur.') 
A vine in a corner of the Vatican gardens which for generations 
has been tended by the Pope himself and his vicar. It pro- 
duces annually one or two tuns of wine, white in color, with a 
faint rosy tinge, and of a most choice and exquisite bouquet. 
The first pressing is the best. This virgin juice, the cream of 
the entire crop, is sedulously preserved for a special purpose. 
Every Tuesday morning, in accordance with a noble old custom, 
His present Holiness celebrates divine service in his private 
chapel, and this service is " for the benefit of the enemies of the 
Church." There and then the holy Father prays earnestly for 
the souls of the most militant sceptics and most outspoken radi- 
cals, as also for the souls of Freemasons and all others who in any 
way make war or try to cast discredit on the Eoman CathoHc 
Church. And at this service the only wine used is the first juice 
of the Lord's vine. 

The second pressing is used at the Pope's table, just as it has 
been used for centuries at the tables of his predecessors. The 
Pope, indeed, is in a sense bound to use it, for it is his duty 
to care for the vine and to hand it down unharmed to his suc- 
cessor. 

The origin of this great vine is lost in the night of time. A 
legend says that it first blossomed and bore fruit in the earthly 
Paradise in company with other delicious fruits and other food, 
and that Adam in his blindness did not discover its virtue and 
potency until it was too late for him to enjoy it. As all the 
world knows, our first father preferred apples. So the vine, 
called into being by the Lord, remained undiscovered until the 
patriarch Noah passed by one day and leisurely ate a few of the 
luscious grapes. He at once cherished the goodly plant and 
warmed his heart with the wine. On one occasion, indeed, he 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 967 

indulged a trifle over-much, thereby setting a bad example to his 
sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 

Subsequently the vine passed into the possession of many 
celebrated personages, and was coveted by all the kings of 
Israel. Many deadly contests were waged on account of it, 
and often was it sorely injured. But in adversity as in pros- 
perity it flourished ever the same, producing beautiful grapes 
and delicious wine. Its fame spread throughout the world on 
one memorable occasion, for when Christ turned water into 
wine at the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee, the story went 
abroad that wine from the Lord's vine was used. 

The vine has seen many evil days since then. It has seen the 
Papacy disturbed and the temporal power shorn away from the 
hands of its masters. It has heard the sound of battles, and 
has often come near to death for want of nourishment. It has 
even more than once seen its wealth of grapes scattered on the 
ground and trampled underfoot. A happy season came when 
it went with the Popes to Avignon. A little vineyard was 
planted there, and, from the Popes down to the humblest peas- 
ants, all took pleasure in tending the vines. When the Popes 
went back to Rome these young vines were transplanted to the 
Yatican, and in due time wine was again made and carefully 
stored away in a cellar. 

Vine-Growers' Feast. (Fr. Fete des Vignerons.) A pa- 
geant performed at irregular intervals at Yevay by the members 
of the Swiss confraternity of wine-growers. It is believed that, 
the society was born about the year 1536, but this fact cannot 
be positively ascertained, because its records were unfortunately 
destroyed by fire in 1688. Tlie festival, however, may be of 
much earlier date ; indeed, it is not impossible that it is a direct 
survival from the Cerealia of pagan times. In 1688 the society 
consisted of only thirty members. Their duty was to super- 
intend the culture of the vines. They visited and inspected the 
vineyards at fixed periods, and had authorit}^ to dispossess any 
proprietor or tenant who neglected his vines for other forms of 
horticulture. At that time the fete was a very modest affair, 
hardly more than a parade in costume through the village to 
the blare of trumpets. 

By the eighteenth century the membership had increased into 
the hundreds. Christian and pagan mythology were represented 
among the paraders, and the concluding banquet was attended 
by civic and even national dignitaries. The latest performance 
was in August, 1889. Tlie festivities were kept up for an entire 
week, but the processions in the amphitheatre took place only 
on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, leaving Wedncs- 



968 CURIOSITIES OF 

day and Saturday for the participants to rest from their labors 
and enjoy themselves in a general merrymaking holiday, finish- 
ing with a grand illumination in the town and on the lake at 
night. 

Two thousand performers took part in the processions. These 
consisted of Swiss guards in their red and white uniforms; the 
members of the confraternity, some in Louis Quinze costumes 
and others in green hats and small clothes, with white waist- 
coats and stockings ; figures of Pales, Ceres, and Bacchus, with 
their followers, each headed by a high-priest and accompanied by 
a band dressed in ancient Eoman costumes, but in colors suited to 
the season they represented. 

After the procession the followers of each divinity took part 
in turn in characteristic dances and ballets. Pales was personi- 
fied by a handsome brunette, arrayed in light blue and crowned 
with flowers, occupying a decorated throne, drawn by white 
oxen with gilded horns and hoofs. In her train were little boys 
and girls dressed in blue, white, and pink, named the children 
of spring, shej^herds and shepherdesses in blue and pink, gar- 
deners in blue and white, mowers, rakers, alpine yodlers, milkers, 
and cheese-makers. 

Ceres, the goddess of corn, was a blonde, with golden hair, 
dressed in red and occupying a similar throne drawn by red 
oxen. Her attendants were reapers and binders, threshers and 
gleaners, and lastly the miller and his wife, with their mill in 
full operation grinding out the flour. 

Bacchus and his cortege were of course tbe most important 
features of the occasion. Bacchus was a young man crowned 
with ivy leaves sitting on a throne drawn by four gray horses. 
Wine-growers, grape-gatherers, tun-makers, and wine-makers, 
all engaged in the practice of their vocations, gave way finally 
to the clown of the occasion, Silenus on his donkey, so full of 
sack that he had to be supported by a negro slave on each side, 
ushering in a merry rout of satyrs, fauns, and bacchanals in 
tights and leopard-skins. The programme in the amphitheatre 
concluded by the two thousand figurantes gathering in front 
of the president's platform and singing the Hymne finale. 
Then all filed out in the order of their entree and marched in 
grand procession through the principal streets. 

Vitus, St., patron saint of Bohemia, Saxony, and Sicily, and 
of dancers and actors. 

St. Vitus was born in the third century, in Sicily, of a noble 
family. His father was a pagan, but the saint was converted by 
his nurse, and declared his faith in Christianity when a mere 
boy. His father, in a rage, threw him into a dungeon, but 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 969 

legend relates that angels came and danced in the dungeon in 
the midst of a dazzling light. When the father looked in to the 
prisoner he was struck blind, but was cured by the intercession 
of his son. The father continued to persecute the son, and he 
fled into Italy. There he was denounced as a Christian and 
thrown into a caldron of boiling oil. Afier his death, it is re- 
lated, a wolf kept guard over his body until it was found and 
buried by the Christians. In art St. Vitus is represented as a 
beautiful boy, and has many attributes, — a palm, a caldron of 
oil, a wolf, a lion, and a cock. 

Votive Offerings. These are now known in ecclesiastical 
Latin as offerta ex-voto. Among the ancient Eomans similar 
offerings to the gods, known as votiva paries^ were hung up in 
temples as tributes of gratitude for divine aid in emergencies. 
Models of arms and legs with records of their cure once deco- 
rated the temple of vEsculapius on the Tiber island, as they do 
now the images of wonder-working saints and Madonnas. The 
heathen Eomans, after escape from shipwreck, hung pictures of 
the tempest and sometimes also their sea-drenched apparel in 
the temple of Neptune, or made the votive offering of a minia- 
ture marble galley to Jupiter Eedax. The same practices are now 
continued under Christian forms. In all the famous shrines of 
Europe and in a large number of churches there may be seen a 
greater or less nuuiber of waxen or silver representations of 
bodily members that have been healed, crutches that restored 
patients have discarded, and rude drawings of dangers escaped, 
while the bushes in the vicinity of holy wells (see Wells, Holy) 
are hung with rags and the beds of the waters are lined with 
pins. 

Hindoo and Buddhist temples in the East are decorated in 
similar fashion. In Japan the offerings assume a peculiarly 
grotesque mixture of the ancient and the modern. At the 
great shrine of Kompira, for example, may be seen a life- 
preserver bearing in English letters the name of the ship, Tosa, 
to which it belonged ; and there, also, among old-fashioned 
ex-voto pictures of junks saved from wreck by divine power, 
are new pictures of steamers and modern schooners similarly 
rescued by the god. At nearly all of the greater temples, and 
at many of the smaller ones, are spoils of the war with China. 
Among these are Gatling and Armstrong guns, canister shot 
and 32-centimetre shells, Mannlicher rifles and Martinis, Colt re- 
volvers and Winchester repeaters, as well as Chinese banners, 
uniforms, and lances, — a vast part of the captured armament 
having been disposed of in this manner. 



970 CURIOSITIES OF 



W. 

"Waits, Christmas. (Old Fr. tvaite, gaite, " a guard," " sen- 
tinel," " watchman.") At present these are unorganized bands of 
boys and men who on the nights preceding Christmas, and espe- 
cially on Christmas Eve, parade the streets of towns and villages 
in England, singing carols and accompanying themselves on 
simple instruments of music, expecting in return to receive a 
gratuity from the houses in front of which they stop. In their 
origin, which may be dated back to the fourteenth or fifteenth 
century, they were probably musical watchmen who were re- 
quired to give practical evidence of their vigilance by playing 
on the hautboy or flageolet at stated times during the night. In 
the household of Edward lY. there is made mention in the 
"Liber Niger Domus Regis" of "a Wayte, that nyghtely from 
Mychelmas to Shreve Thorsdaye pipe the watch within this 
courte fowere tymes ; in the Somere nightes three tymes, and 
maketh boo gayte at every chambre doare and offyce, as well 
for feare of pyckeres and pilfers [pickers and stealers]." 

These " Waytes" afterwards became organized bands of mu- 
sicians, who held themselves in readiness to play at weddings, 
banquets, etc. Almost every city and town had its corporation 
waits. In London they earned a small stipend for playing before 
the lord mayor in his inaugural procession, and eked out a living 
by performing at private festivities. Their regular uniform in 
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was blue gowns, red 
sleeves and caps, and a silver collar about the neck. 

The dedication of Morley's " Consort Lessons" (1599) to the 
lord mayor and aldermen of London seems to indicate that 
these waits were no mean musicians : 

" As the ancient custom of this most honorable and renowned 
city hath been ever to retain and maintain excellent and expert 
musicians to adorn your Honor's favor, feasts, and solemn meet- 
ings — to these your Lordships' Wayts, I recommend the same — 
to your servants' careful and skilful handling." 

"Wake. (Originally lyke-wake or Uche-wake, from the Anglo- 
Saxon lie, "a corpse," and wcecce or wake, "to watch," "to keep 
vigil.") An all-night watch of friends and relations over the 
remains of the dead before the funeral. The custom is of un- 
known origin and antiquity. Although at present it is almost 
entirely confined to Ireland and to Irish communities in foreign 
lands, it flourished at one time in many parts of Grreat Britain 
and later in colonial Nev/ England. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 971 

How that the liche-wake was yholde 
Al thilke night. 

(Chaitcer: Knighfs Tale, 1. 2100.) 

It may have originated from a superstition that the body 
would be carried away or defaced by evil spirits, or from a 
more rational idea of injury to it from rats or from wild 
beasts. Christianity introduced the idea of making it an occasion 
for offering prayers for the repose of the soul of the deceased. 
Usually the corpse was deposited under a table with a plate of 
salt on its breast, and the table was covered with various kinds 
of liquor to revive the flagging energies of mourners and 
watchers. But it was found in very early days that, in Miss 
Edgeworth's words, the presence of liquor turned these meetings 
" held professedly for the indulgence of holy sorrow into orgies 
of unholy joy." Church and State both made efforts to regulate 
the wake and to weed out its objectionable features, though 
both were unwilling to abolish it altogether. The tenth canon 
of the provincial synod held in London during the reign of 
Edward III. warned the faithful that the design of people's 
meeting together upon such occasions was to join their prayers 
for the benefit of the dead person ; that this ancient and ser- 
viceable usage was overgrown with superstition and turned into 
a convenience for theft and debauchery; therefore for a remedy 
against this disorder it was decreed that upon the death of any 
person none should be allowed to watch before the corpse in a 
private house excepting near relations and friends of the de- 
ceased and such as offered to repeat a number of psalms for the 
benefit of his soul. The penalty annexed was excommunication. 
This may have been one of the factors which worked towards 
the abolition of the custom in England. The Eeformation and 
the consequent disuse of prayers for the dead gave it its death- 
blow. 

That some sort of funeral feasts not entirely unlike wakes 
were practised at a remote antiquity is evident from frequent 
allusions in the Old Testament and other ancient writers. " Deli- 
cates poured upon a mouth shut up are as messes of meat set 
upon a grave," says Ecclesiasticus. " Pour out thy bread upon 
the burial of the just," says the book of Tobit ; and Jeremiah, 
foretelling the calamities that shall befall the Jews, predicts that 
"they shall not be buried, . . . neither shall men give them the 
cup of consolation to di-ink for their father or for their mother." 
At the present day a feast in honor of the dead is practised by 
the Albanians and the Abyssinians which is almost identical 
with the Irish wake. This fact is frequently used as an argu- 
ment for the common origin of the Oriental races and the Celts. 



972 CURIOSITIES OF 

Something very like a wake was observed by the Puritans in 
colonial New England. Hawthorne has recorded the jollity that 
was usual at a funeral among these otherwise stern and sober 
folk : " They were the only class of scenes, so far as my investi- 
gation has taught me, in which our ancestors were wont to steep 
their tough old hearts in wine and strong drink and indulge in 
an outbreak of grisly joUity. Look back through all the social 
customs of New England in the first century of her existence 
and read all her traits of character, and find one occasion other 
than a funeral feast where jollity was sanctioned by universal 
practice." 

Miss Alice Morse Earle, in "Customs and Fashions of Old 
New England," p. 310, quotes a bill for the mortuary expenses 
of David Porter of Hartford, who was drowned in 1678, which 
shows how universally liquor was served to all who had to do 
with a funeral : 

By a pint of liquor for those who dived for him Is. 

By a quart of liquor for those who bro't him home .... 2s. 

By 2 quarts of wine & 1 gallon of cyder to jury of inquest . 5s. 

By 8 gallons and 3 qts. wine for funeral £1 15s. 

By barrel cyder for funeral 16s. 

1 coffin 12s. 

Windeing sheet 18s. 

Not only at a gathering held on the night before the funeral, 
but also at the funeral itself, copious draughts of liquor were con- 
sumed. Even town paupers had two or three gallons of rum or 
a barrel of cider given by the town to be drunk at their burial. 
The liquor at the funeral of a minister was usually paid for by 
the church or the town. An experienced committee was ap- 
pointed to superintend the mixing of the grog or punch which 
was the ceremonious tap of the occasion and to see that it was 
liberally dispensed among the mourners. 

Sargent tells us that in his boyhood a table with liquors was 
always provided at country funerals : " Every one, as he entered, 
took off his hat with his left hand, smoothed down his hair with 
his right, walked up to the coffin, gazed upon the corpse, made a 
crooked face, passed on to the table, took a glass of his favorite 
liquor, went forth upon the plat before the house, and talked 
politics, or the new road, or compared crops, or swapped heifers 
or horses, until it was time to lift. A clergyman told me that 
when settled at Concord, New Hampshire, he officiated at the 
funeral of a little boy. The body was borne in a chaise, and six 
little nominal pall bearers, the oldest not thirteen, walked by the 
side of the vehicle. Before they left the house a sort of master 
of ceremonies took them to the table and mixed a tumbler of 
gin, water, and sugar for each." 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 973 

Something resembling a wake was practised among the early 
Knickerbockers. Both in New York and in Albany each house 
had its dood-kamer, or dead-chamber, where the dead were placed 
until the funeral. Dutch ladies were famous for their attendance 
on such occasions, and, if the deceased were of their sex, burnt 
wine was served them in silver tankards. The funeral was 
always a great event, and the good vrouw's skill was spent to 
the utmost to load her table with choicest delicacies for the dood- 
feest^ the most prominent dish being the dood-koecks (q. v.). They 
were thick disks about four inches in diameter and similar in 
ingredients to our New- Year cakes, and were kept for years as 
mementos of the departed. "Each burgher had a pipe of wine 
spiced in reserve for his funeral, and I regret to say the mourners 
were often in a mournful condition after the event ; and in this 
connection we recall an incident. A familiar name in the old 
Dutch times in Albany was Wyngaard. Skipper Block, in his 
cruise of discovery, called an island he came across Martin Wyn- 
gaard's Island, Martin Vineyard's Island^ corrupted to Martha's 
Yineyard; and likewise Wyngaard's Point is now known as 
Yineyard Point. The last in the male line was one Lucas Wyn- 
gaard, who died about 1756, unmarried, and leaving estate. The 
invitations to the funeral were general, — a custom still kept up 
among old Dutch families in Albany, — and all relatives and 
friends received a written invitation to be present. Of course the 
attendance was large, and those who attended returned, as was 
the custom, to the house, not leaving till morning's light. In 
the course of the night a pipe of wine was drunk, dozens of 
pounds of tobacco consumed, grosses of pipes broken, not a 
whole decanter or glass left in the house, and finally the pall- 
bearers ended the debauch by^ kindling a fire with their scarfs." 
(A Glimpse of an Old Dutch Town: Harper's Magazine, vol. Ixii. 
p. 54.) 

Walburga, St., also called Walpurgis, Walbourg, Val- 
purge, Gualbourg, and Avangour. Her festival is celebrated 
on February 25, the anniversary of her death, and on May 1, 
that of the enshrinement of her relics at Furncs. 

St. Walburga was born in the kingdom of the West Saxons in 
England, and was educated in the monaster}^ of Winburn, where 
she took the veil and remained for twenty-seven years. She 
accompanied her uncle St. Boniface and her brother St. Wilii- 
bald to the continent, and went with ten other nuns to Mayence. 
She afterwards was made abbess of the convent of Ileidenhoim. 
After the death of Willibald she also governed a community of 
monks which he had founded at Eichstiidt. She had studied 
medicine, and is reported to have made some wonderful cures. 



974 CURIOSITIES OF 

She died about the year 778, and was entombed in a rock near 
Eichstadt which exuded a bituminous oil. It was believed by 
the people that this oil came from the remains of the saint, and 
that it had remarkable curative powers : it was called Wal- 
purgls oil. The rock became a place of pilgrimage, and a church 
was built on the spot. On the eve of her festival, Walpurgis 
^ight, the witches are supposed to hold their orgies on the sum- 
mit of the Blocksberg. A considerable portion of the remains 
of the saint was translated to Furnes, and enshrined on May 
1, on which day her chief festival is celebrated in the Belgic 
martyrologies. From Furnes small parts of the relics were 
distributed to Antwerp, Brussels, Thiel, Arnhem, Wtirtemberg, 
Cologne, Hanover, and other places. Christ Church at Can- 
terbury received some of the relics. The saint's festival, on 
account of various translations of her relics, is marked on sev- 
eral days of the year, but is kept in most places on the day of 
her death. She is represented in art in the Benedictine habit 
with a crosier and a flask, the latter a symbol of the Wal- 
purgis oil. 

Walsingham, Our Lady of. A wonder-working image of 
the Blessed Virgin which in old Catholic days was preserved in 
the church at Walsingham, Norfolk, which thence became one 
of the chief objects of pilgrimages in England. 

Erasmus informs us that Walsingham was almost entirely 
supported by the vast numbers of persons who came to make 
their offerings to the Virgin. In the church in which the image 
stood was a little chapel of wood, into which the pilgrims were 
admitted from each side by a narrow door. There was scarcely 
any light, except that of the gratefully odorous wax tapers ; but 
a person looking in would say that it was an abode of the gods, 
so bright and resplendent was it all over with jewels, gold, and 
silver. 

To show what constant tribute was paid to " Our Lad}' of 
Walsingham," a few extracts may be given from the " Household 
book of the Earl of Northumberland :" " Sect. 43. Item : My 
lord useth yearly to send afore Michaelmas for his lordship's 
offering to our lady of Walsingham — M. Item : My lord useth 
and accustometh to send yearly for the upholding of the light 
of wax which his lordship findeth burning yearly before our lady 
of Walsingham, containing eleven pounds of wax in it after — 
7d Ob. For the finding of every pound ready wrought by a 
covenant made with the channon by great, for the whole year, 
for the finding of the said light burning — Qs. Sd. Item : My 
lord useth and accustometh to send yearly to the channon that 
keepeth the light before our lady of Walsingham, for his reward 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 975 

for the whole year, for keeping of the said light, lighting it at 
all service times daily throughout the year — 12d. Item : My 
lord useth and aecustometh yearly to send to the priest that 
keepeth the light, lighting of it at all service times daily through- 
out the year — 35. 4:dr 

Eoyalty as well as the nobility delighted to do honor to the 
Walsingham shrine. In May, 1469, Edward lY. and his queen 
made a pilgrimage thither, as we read in a letter from James 
Hawte to Sir John Paston : " As for the king, as I understand, 
he departs to Walsingham upon Friday com sev'night, and the 
queen also, if Grod send her health." 

In 1538 Henry YIII. stripped the magnificent shrine of all 
its treasure, and dissolved the religious house of which it was 
the pride and the support. The wonder-working image, and 
those of Ipswich, Worcester, and many others, were all taken 
away at the instance of Cromwell ; those of Walsingham and 
Ij)swich were brought up to London, " with all the jewels that 
hung about them," and along with the rest were burned at 
Chelsea. (See also Pilgrimages.) 

But though the shrine has disappeared, the holy wells which 
it sanctified still remain, — two circular stone pits filled with 
water, enclosed with a square wall, where the pilgrims used to 
kneel and throw in a piece of gold, whilst they prayed for health. 
These waters formerly had the reputation of curing disorders of 
the head and stomach. This property, however, has been re- 
placed by another of a more comprehensive character, — the 
power of accomplishing all human wishes. In order to attain 
this desirable end, writes Mr. Glyde in the Norfolk Garland^ " the 
votary, with a due qualification of faith and pious awe, must 
apply the right knee bare ta a stone placed for that purpose 
between the wells. He must then plunge to the wrist each hand, 
ba^e also, into the water of the wells, which are near enough to 
admit of the immersion. A wish must then be formed, but not 
uttered with the lips, either at the time or afterwards, even in 
confidential communication to the dearest friend. The hands 
are then to be withdrawn, and as much of* the water as can be 
obtained in the hollow of each is to be swallowed. This silent 
wish will be accomplished within the following twelve months." 

AA^ashington's Birthday, February 22. It was the most 
natural thing for our forefathers to choose Washington's Birth- 
day as a time for general thanksgiving and rejoicing, and it is 
interesting to note that the observance was not delayed until 
after the death of Washington. Washington had the satisfac- 
tion of receiving the congratulations of his fellow-citizens many 
times upon the return of his birthday, frequently being a guest 



976 CURIOSITIES OF 

at the banquets given in honor of the occasion. In fact, after 
the Eevolution, Washington's Birthday practically took the place 
of the birthday of the various crowned heads of Great Britain, 
which had always been celebrated with enthusiasm during colo- 
nial times. When independence was established, all these royal 
birthdays were cast aside, and the birthday of Washington natu- 
rally became one of the most conspicuous in the calendar of 
America's holidays. 

It may be interesting at this time to look back upon those 
early days of the republic and see how the newly liberated citi- 
zens attested their admiration for their great general and the 
first President of their country. But the people did not wait 
until Washington was raised to the highest position his country 
could give him before honoring his birthday. 

The first recorded mention of the celebration is said to be the 
one in The Virginia Gazette or The American Advertiser of Rich- 
mond : " Tuesday last being the birthday of his Excellency Gen- 
eral Washington, our illustrious Commander-in-Chief, the same 
was commemorated herewith the utmost demonstrations of joy." 
The day thus celebrated was February 11, 1782, the Old Style 
in the calendar not having then been everywhere and for every 
purpose abandoned. Indeed, the stone placed as late as in 1815 
on the site of his birthplace in Westmoreland County, Yirginia, 
had the following inscription : " Here, the 11th of February, 1732, 
George Washington was born." 

Twelve months later the 11th was commemorated at Talbot 
Court-House in Maryland. On the same day a number of gen- 
tlemen met in a tavern in New York. One had written an ode. 
Another brought a list of toasts. All, before they went reeling 
and singing home, agreed to assemble in future on the same anni- 
versary and make merry over the birth of Washington. 

Next year they had an ampler opportunity. In the previous 
October the British troops had evacuated New York city, which 
was gradually recovering from the distresses of the long war. 
The demonstrations were not very elaborate, but they were in- 
tensely patriotic. In a newspaper of February 17, 1784, we 
find an interesting account of this first public celebration in 
New York : 

" Wednesday last being the birthday of his Excellency, Gen- 
eral Washington, the same was celebrated here by all the true 
friends of American Independence and Constitutional Liberty 
with that hilarity and manly decorum ever attendant on the 
Sons of Freedom. In the evening an entertainment was given 
on board the East India ship in this harbor to a very brilliant 
and respectable company, and a discharge of thirteen cannon was 
fired on this joyful occasion." 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 977 

A club called a "Select Club of Whigs" assembled in New 
York on the evening of February 11, and a brief account of the 
proceedings at its meeting was sent to the JVew York Gazette, 
with an amusing song, written, it was stated, especially for this 
occasion. The following stanzas ^vill serve as a sample of this 
effusion of poetical patriotism : 

Americans, rejoice ; 

While songs employ the voice, 

Let trumpets sound. 
The thirteen stripes display- 
In flags and streamers gay, 
'Tis Washington's Birthday, 

Let joy abound. 

Long may he live to see 
This .land of liberty 

Flourish in peace ; 
Long may he live to prove 
A grateful people's love, 
And late to heaven remove, 

Where joys ne'er cease. 

Fill the glass to the brink, 
Washington's health we'll drink, 

'Tis his birthday. 
Glorious deeds he has done, 
By him our cause is won. 
Long live great Washington ! 

Huzza ! Huzza ! 

The following is also an interesting example of newspaper edi- 
torial patriotism which appeared in the JVew York Gazette at the 
same time: "After the Almig^hty Author of our existence and 
happiness, to whom, as a people, are we under the greatest obli- 
gations ? I know you will answer, ' To Washington.' That great, 
that gloriously disinterested man has, without the idea of pe- 
cuniary reward, on the contrary, much to his private danger, 
borne the greatest and most distinguished part in our political sal- 
vation. He is now retired from public service, with, I trust, the 
approbation of God, his country, and his own heart. But shall 
we forget him ? 'No ; rather let our hearts cease to beat than an 
ungrateful forgetfulness shall sully the part any of us have taken 
in the redemption of our country. On this day, the hero enters 
into the fifty-third year of his age. Shall such a day pass un- 
noticed? No ; let a temperate manifestation of joy express the 
sense we have of the blessings that arose upon America on that 
day which gave birth to Washington. Let us call our children 
around us and tell them the many blessings they owe to him and 
to those illustrious characters who have assisted him in the great 

G2 



978 CURIOSITIES OF 

work of the emancipation of our country, and urge them by 
such examples to transmit the delights of freedom and indepen- 
dence to their posterity." 

It is also interesting to know that New York city was not 
the only place in the country remembering Washington's Birth- 
day in this year 1784. The residents of Eichmond, Virginia, 
were not forgetful of the day, and in the evening an elegant 
entertainment and ball were given in the Capitol Building, which, 
we are informed, were largely attended. So late as 1796, Ken- 
tucky and Virginia persisted in preserving the Old Style date. 
But we have documentary evidence that in 1790 the Tammany 
Society of New York celebrated the day on February 22. The 
society had been organized less than a year, and it is interesting 
to see that it did not allow the first Washington's Birthday in its 
history to pass by without fitting expressions of regard for the 
man who was then living in the city as President of the United 
States. Washington, at that time, lived in the lower part of 
Broadway, a few doors below Trinity Church. Congress was in 
session in the old City Hall, on the corner of Wall and Nassau 
Streets, now occupied by the Sub-Treasury. New York w^as the 
capital of the country, but it was the last year that it enjoyed 
that distinction, for before the close of 1790 the seat of govern- 
ment was removed to Philadelphia, where it remained until 1800, 
when permanent governmental quarters were taken up at Wash- 
ington. It may be of interest to know how the founders of 
this famous political organization commemorated Washington's 
Birthday. Fortunately, the complete account of this first Tam- 
many celebration has been preserved. It was published in a New 
York newspaper, a day or two after the event, as follows: 

" At a meeting of the Society of St. Tammany, at their wig- 
wam in I his city, on Monday evening last, after finishing the 
ordinary business of the evening, it was unanimously resolved : 
That the 22d day of February be, from this day and ever after, 
commemorated by this society as the birthday of the Illus- 
trious George Washington, President of the United States of 
America. The society then proceeded to the commemoration 
of the auspicious day which gave birth to the distinguished 
chief, and the following toasts were drank in porter, the produce 
of the United States, accompanied with universal acclamations 
of applause : 

"1. May the auspicious birthday of our great Grand Sachem, George 
Washington, ever be commemorated by all the real sons of St. Tammany. 

2. The birthday of those chiefs who lighted the great Council Fire in 1775. 

3. The glorious Fourth of July, 1776, the birth of American Independence. 

4. The perpetual memory of those Sachems and warriors who have been 
called by the Kitchi Manitou to the Wigwam above since the Ke volution. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 979 

5. The births of the Sachems and warriors who have presided at the differ- 
ent council fires of the thirteen tribes since 1776. 

6. Our Chief Sachem, who presides over the council fire of our tribe. 

7. The 12th of May, which is the birthday of our titular saint and patron. 

8. The birth of Columbus, our secondary patron. 

9. The memory of the great Odagh 'Segte, first Grand Sachem of the 
Oneida Nation, and all his successors. 

10. The friends and patrons of virtue and freedom from Tammany to 
Washington. 

11. The birth of the present National Constitution, 17th of September, 
1787. 

12. The Sachems and warriors who composed that council. 

13. May the guardian genius of freedom pronounce at the birth of all her 
sons — Where Liberty dwells, there is his country. 

"After mutual reciprocations of friendship on the joyous oc- 
casion, the society adjourned with their usual order and har- 
mony." 

In Washington ever since the first President was inaugurated 
it had been the practice of the House to adjourn for half an 
hour to congratulate him on the happy return of his natal day. 
But this observance was dropped in 1796, on account of the ani- 
mosities excited by the Jay Treaty. 

The Philadelphians, always patriotic, never allowed Washing- 
ton's Birthday to go by without due celebration. In 1793 a num- 
ber of old Eevolutionary oflScers belonging to the First Brigade 
of Pennsylvania Militia had a " very splendid entertainment at 
Mr. Hill's tavern in Second Street, near Eace Street." Accord- 
ing to a Philadelphia newspaper account, the company was nu- 
merous and truly respectable, and among the guests on that 
occasion were the Governor of Pennsylvania, Thomas Mi film, 
and Mr. Muhlenberg, Speaker of the House of Eepresentatives. 
At all these patriotic banquets it was customary to give as many 
toasts as there were States in the Union, so that during the 
early years we invariably find that thirteen toasts w^as the rule. 
As new States were added, however, extra toasts were added 
to the list. Just when this custom died out can perhaps not 
be definitely determined, but probably the rapid increase of the 
States may have had something to do with it, as the diners 
probably saw that it was taxing their drinking abilities too 
heavily with the addition of each new State. However, at this 
Philadelphia celebration the toasts were fifteen, as two new 
States had recently been added, and among some of the most 
interesting are the following: 

The people of the United States — May their dignity and happiness be 
perpetual, and may the gratitude of the Nation be ever commensurate with 
their privileges. 

The President of the United States — May the evening of his life be 
attended with felicity equal to the utility and glory of its meridian. 



980 CURIOSITIES OF 

The Fair Daughters of America — May the purity, the rectitude, and the 
virtues of their mind ever continue equal to their beauty and external accom- 
plishments. 

The Republic of France — Wisdom and stability to her councils, success to 
her armies and navies, and may her enemies be compensated for their defeats 
by the speedy and general diffusion of that liberty which they are vainly 
attf^mpting to suppress. 

May Columbia be ever able to boast a Jefferson in council, a Hamilton in 
finance, and, when necessary, a Washington to lead her armies to conquest 
and glory. 

The Day — May such auspicious periods not cease to recur till every day in 
the year shall have smiled on Columbia with the birth of a Washington. 

Our Unfortunate Friend, the Marquis de Lafayette — May America become 
shortly his asylum from indignity and wrong, and may the noon and evening 
of his life be yet honorable and happy in the bosom of that country where its 
morning shone with such unclouded splendor. 

In conclusion, the newspaper account of this celebration states 
that " the afternoon and evening were agreeably spent in social 
pleasures and convivial mirth, and the conduct of the whole 
company was marked by that politeness, harmony, and friend- 
ship which ought ever to characterize the intercourse of fellow- 
citizens and gentlemen." 

Balls and banquets, it will be seen, were the chief methods 
employed in celebrating the day, and there was hardly a town 
so small that it could not manage to have at least one of these 
functions in honor of George Washington. The early news- 
papers for a month, and often longer, after the 22d of February, 
were filled with brief accounts of these celebrations from diflPor- 
ent localities. Many of them are very interesting, showing, as 
they do, the patriotism of the people, as well as their customs 
and habits in their social entertainments. For instance, when 
Washington's Birthday was celebrated in Alexandria, Virginia, 
in 1791, the Baltimore Advertiser gives us the following amusing 
account of a ball held at Wise's tavern : 

" The meeting was numerous and brilliant. Joy beamed in 
every countenance. Sparkling eyes, dimpled cheeks dressed in 
smiles, prompted by the occasion with all the various graces 
of female beauty, contributed to heighten the pleasure of the 
scene. At an interesting moment a portrait of the President, a 
striking likeness, was suddenly exhibited. The illustrious origi- 
nal had been often seen in the same room in the mild character 
of a friend, a pleased and pleasing guest. The song of' God 
bless great Washington, Long live great Washington,' succeeded. 
In this prayer many voices and all hearts united. May it not be 
breathed in vain." 

Wassail. (Anglo-Saxon, wes hdl, "be whole," "be well," 
equivalent to " here's to your health.") Originally a pledge drunk 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 981 

between friends. The word is now applied especially to a 
festive occasion or meeting where drinking and toasting are 
the order of the hour, and also to the liquor used thereat. 
The wassail bowl which still survives locally was a prominent 
feature of the mediaeval English Christmas festivities, making 
its appearance not only on the day itself, but on New Year's 
and Twelfth Night or Epiphany. This bowl was often of mas- 
sive silver, and was frequently decked with ribbons and sprigs 
of rosemary. The component parts of its good cheer were ale, 
sugar, nutmeg, and roasted apples, a mixture which also went 
under the name of " lamb's-wool." It is evident that crab-apples 
were often used in the wassail bowl, as frequent allusions are 
made in old English poetry to " turning a crabbe in the fire," 
and Shakespeare makes Puck say, — 

And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl, 
In very likeness of a roasted crab, 
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob, 
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale. 

One of the earliest mentions of the wassail bowl in England is 
that well-known scene when Rowena, the daughter of Hengist, 
presented to her father's guest. King Yortigern, a bowl of wine, 
with the words, "Louerd King Wass-heil!" to which he replied, 
" Drinc Heil !" The American New Year's toasts of health and 
happiness seem the legitimate successors of these ancient pledges. 
In the early part of the nineteenth century the mistress of many 
an American home was wont to rise before daybreak and with 
the help of her maids prepare a huge bowl of eggnog, of which 
each member of the family drank, servants as well, and to which 
each chance guest of the Christmas or New Year's morn was 
invited. 

In a collection of ordinances for the regulation of the royal 
household in the reign of Henry YII. on Twelfth Night the 
steward was enjoined, when entering with the spiced and 
smoking bowl, to cry " Wassail" three times, to which the royal 
chaplain had to respond with an appropriate song, whether he 
was in voice or not. 

The custom of wassailing at New Year's obtained in monas- 
teries as well as in private houses. The mighty bowl called 
" Poculum Caritatis" was placed at the upper end of the re- 
fectory table at the front of the abbey, and from it the Superior 
drank to all, and all drank in succession to one another. 

A custom much like this is still kept up in the Corporation 
feasts of London. A double-handled flagon, full of sweetened 
and spiced wine, is handed to the master, who drinks, standing, 
to the general health as announced by the toast-master, then 



b82 CURIOSITIES OF 

passes it to his neighbor on the left, who drinks, standing, to his 
next neighbor, also standing, and so on until all have drunk. 
This is the popular ceremony of the "loving-cup." 

While the wealthier classes were pouring down their copious 
libations, young women of the poorer classes went from house 
to house with wassail bowls adorned with ribbons, and singing 
carols calculated to beguile even the hard heart of a Midas into 
giving. If, however, the combined efforts of song and wine 
failed to elicit a sufficient pecuniary recognition, the carol 
speedily terminated in malignant anathemas. Here is a good 
old wassail song : 

A Jolly Wassail Bowl, 

A Wassail of good ale ; 
Well fare the butler's soul 

That setteth this to sale — 

Our jolly Wassail. 

Good Dame, here at your door 

Our Wassail we begin ; 
We are all maidens poor, 

We pray now let us in 

With our Wassail. 

Our Wassail we do fill 

With apples and with spice ; 
Then grant us your good will 

To taste here once or twice 

Of our good Wassail. 

But here they let us stand 

All freezing in the cold. 
Good Master, give command 

To enter and be bold 

With our Wassail. 

Much joy into this hall 

With us is entered in. 
Our Master, first of all, 

We hope will now begin 

Of our Wassail. 

If songs like the above met with no immediate acknow- 
ledgment, the singers followed them up with verses like these: 

Give way, give way, ye gates ! and win 
An easy blessing to your bin 
And basket by our entering in. 

Oh, may your dairies prosper so 

As that your pans no ebb may know ; 

But if they do, the more to flow, 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 983 

Like to a solemn sober stream 
Banked all with lilies, and the cream 
Of sweetest cowslips filling them ; 

Last, may your harrows, shares, and ploughs, 
Your stacks, your stalls, your sweetest mows, 
All prosper by our virgin vows. 

Alas ! we bless, but see none here 
That brings us either ale or beer : 
In a dry house, all things are near. 

On St. Stephen's Day it was the fashion, in the early part of 
the century, to exhibit a " merry disport," or pageant, which 
perhaps had something to do with the Eeformation, in the hall 
of the Inner Temple in London. Mr. Hone describes it in his 
" Year Book." Revelling appears to have formed an important 
part of the scene, if we may judge from one of the stanzas 
chanted by the " ancientest of masters :" 

Bring hither the bowle. 

The brimming brown bowle, 
And quaff the rich juice right merrilie ; 

Let the wine-cup go round 

Till the solid ground 
■Shall quake at the noise of our revelrie. 

Let wassail and wine 

Their pleasures combine. 
While we quaff the rich juice right merrilie ; 

Let us drink till we die. 

When the saints we relie 
Will mingle their songs with our revelrie. 

The custom of drinking wassail in Scotland prevailed even 
into the early part of the i^ineteenth century. As the clock 
struck the knell of the departing year, it was accompanied by a 
cordial shaking of hands, and a decorous dance around the table, 
and the following song : 

Weel may we a' be ; 
Illmay we never see. 
Here's to the King 
And the gude companie ! 

The elders of the family would then sally forth, bearing the 
hot bowl and a generous supply of 'buns and short-cake or bread 
and cheese, to interchange cordial greeting with their neighbors. 
So general was this custom that in Edinburgh the principal 
streets were more densely thronged between the hours of twelve 
and one a.m. than at mid-day. 

An unlucky circumstance, however, on January 1, 1812, put an 
end to this national custom. A party of young ruflians decided to 



984 CURIOSITIES OF 

turn this custom of their elders to account for purposes of per- 
sonal aggrandizement. No sooner bad the thrifty well-meaning 
people come abroad with their refreshments than these rascals 
sallied forth in small bands and began their attack. Their pre- 
vious agreement was to " strike for" the white neck-cloths, as- 
tutely reasoning that the highly respectable wearers of those 
immaculate cravats would be most likely to carry property 
worth the taking. 

W^assailing the Orchards. An old English custom was 
that of wassailing the fruit-trees on Christmas Eve, New Year's, 
or Epiphany. Herrick says, — 

Wassail the trees, that they may beare 
You many a plum, and many a peare : 
For more or less fruits they will bring 
As you do give them wassailing. 

This custom differed i.n date and in ceremonial detail accord- 
ing to the locality. In Devonshire and other cider counties the 
farmer with bis family, his friends, and bis servants would 
march out in the evening of Twelfth Night. One of the party 
bore a large pitcher filled with " cyder" and roasted apples 
hissing therein. The procession encircled the biggest and most 
productive tree, as a representative of the rest, and drank the 
following toast three times : 

Here's to thee, old apple-tree. 

Whence thou mayst bud, and then mayst blow I 

And whence thou mayst bear apples enow ! 

Hats full ! Caps full ! 

Bushel, bushel, sacks full ! 

And my pockets full, too, huzza ! 

They then sprinkled the tree with cider, or dashed a bowl of 
cider against it. In other places only the farmer and his ser- 
vants assembled on the occasion, and after immersing cakes in 
cider hung them on the apple-trees. They then sprinkled the 
trees with cider, pronounced their incantation, and went home 
to feast. 

In the western counties of England and some parts of Wales 
it is the regular practice to salute the apple-trees on Christmas 
morning. The inhabitants of a village turn out about seven 
o'clock, while it is yet dark, and gather at a rendezvous previ- 
ously decided upon. There they are joined by the parson of 
the village church, the beadle, parish clerk, and school-master. 
A procession is then formed and marches around the adjacent 
district, visiting each large orchard in turn. On arriving at an 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 985 

orchard the people are received by the owner and admitted. 
Then they are conducted to one of the best trees, which is 
considered a representative of all the others in the orchard, 
and around it they gather. The beadle or a well-known man 
in the village produces a large bottle of cider and sprinkles the 
tree with the beverage. Meanwhile all the other people remain 
silent, and the officiating villager addresses the tree in a quaint 
fashion something like this : 

'' O tree ! O tree ! O tree ! Bear fruit and flourish. Thy 
owner nourish. Give wealth and plenty." 

The people repeat these words, and then, accompanied by 
the owner, the procession re-forms and marches to another 
orchard, where a like ceremony is performed. It is supposed 
that every plantation treated in this way will be a fruitful 
source of income to its owner during the coming year. 

Horsfield in his " History of Sussex" tells us that in his time 
the wassailing or, as it is locally termed, the worsting of the 
fruit-trees is considered a matter of great importance there, and 
its omission is believed to bring ill-luck, if not the loss of the 
entire year's crop. Those who engage in the ceremony are 
called " howlers." 

The farm-laborers or village boys assemble under the lead of 
a trumpeter equipped with a cow's horn. After gaining the 
owner's consent, which is rarely denied, they proceed to the 
orchard, and, encircling the representative tree, chant in a low 
voice some variant of the rhyme already quoted. This ended, 
the trumpeter blows a loud blast, and all shout in chorus. Then 
they go from tree to tree, rapping each with their sticks, and 
after wassailing the whole orchard return to the owner and sing 
at his door a song which obtains them admission. Ranging 
themselves around the kitchen fire, they are treated to ale and 
join in various in-door amusements. 

In the neighborhood of the New Forest the following lines are 
sung at the wassailing of the trees : 

Apples and pears, with right good corn, 
Come in plenty to every one ; 
Eat and drink good cake and hot ale, 
Give earth to drink, and she'll not fail. 

Analogous customs are found in many parts of Continental 
Europe. In Southern Germany during the Christmas season 
the table-cloths are shaken over the roots of the fruit-trees as 
an offering. A more ancient custom was for some one to go in 
a state of nudity at midnight on Christmas Eve and bind the 
fruit-trees with ropes of straw. In the Tyrol the fruit-trees are 
violently beaten with clubs and staves. A like custom prevails 



986 CURIOSITIES OF 

in Bohemia, where till of the household, at the hour of midnight 
on Christmas Eve, go about the orchard shaking the trees. In 
some agricultural sections, during the night preceding Christmas 
Day lighted torches are carried in procession through the or- 
chards, and hymns are sung which contain prayers for a large 
harvest. In others the fruit-trees are regaled with the remains 
of the Christmas supper, to which they have been previously 
and speciallj' invited. 

These Teutonic customs all point to the mysterious influences 
attributed by the ancient Germans to the Twelve Mghts as the 
origin of the wassailing customs. 

Well- Dressing. A ceremony which still survives in Eng- 
land and is probably an adaptation to Christian usage of the 
ancient Eoraan Fontinalia, or annual flower- festival of the spirits 
of the streams and fountains. Derbyshire with. the adjacent 
counties is the home of the custom. The most famous of all the 
well-dressings occurs at Tissington on Ascension Day. Derby 
and Wirksworth select Whitsuntide ; Goulgrave, St. John's Day ; 
Barton, the Thursday nearest to the latter date ; Endon, in Staf- 
fordshire, Eoyal Oak Day. 

The origin of the Tissington custom is popularly attributed 
to a great drought that occurred in 1615, when the people for 
miles around drove their cattle to drink at the five wells or 
springs of Tissington and a thanksgiving service was appointed 
for every succeeding Ascension Day. But the custom is prob- 
ably far more ancient. 

The five springs are rather fountains or cascades, the water 
descending from above, and not rising, as in a well. These are 
decorated for the occasion with flowers arranged in the most 
beautiful devices. Boards are cut into arches, pediments, pinna- 
cles, and other ornamental forms, and are covered with moist 
clay to the thickness of about half an inch ; the flowers are cut 
off their stems and impressed into the clay as closely together 
as possible, forming mottoes, borders, and other devices; these 
are then placed over the wells, and it is impossible to conceive a 
more beautiful appearance than the}^ present, the water gurgling 
from beneath them, and overhung by the fine foliage of the 
numerous evergreens and forest trees by which they are sur- 
rounded. There is one particular variety of the double daisy, 
known to gardeners as the Tissington daisy, which appears 
almost peculiar to the place, and is in much repute for forming 
the letters of the texts and mottoes with which the wells are 
adorned. The day is observed as a complete holiday, and the 
festival attracts a- considerable number of visitors from all the 
neighboring towns and villages. Divine service is performed in 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 987 

the church, and on its conclusion the minister and congregation 
join in procession and visit each well. 

The three Psalms appointed for the day are read successively 
at the first three wells, and a hymn is sung. The Epistle and 
Gospel are read ut the last two wells. 

At Endon there are two wells, one very ancient and almost 
dried up, the second comparatively modern, which supplies the 
village with water. The proceedings are under the personal 
guidance of the vicar of the parish, and at two o'clock a pro- 
cession of school-children is formed at the new well, headed by a 
band of music. The children wave flags vigorously, and the pro- 
cession marches to the old parish church, where a solemn service 
is held and the villagers attend in large numbers. Hymns and 
psalms applicable to a thanksgiving service for water are sung, 
and at the conclusion of the service the procession is re-formed 
and marches back to the new well. Then the clergy and choir 
walk slowly round the well, singing " Eock of Ages" and " A 
living stream so crystal clear." The well is adorned, as at Tis- 
sington, with a large wooden framework erected in front of it, 
covered with a surface of clay, and thickly studded with flowers 
of every kind of hue. " O ye wells, bless the Lord !" was the 
text that garnished the summit. Maypole dances, including the 
crowning of the May Queen, occupy the greater part of the 
afternoon, and in the evening the band plays for dancing, and 
the Maypole dances are repeated. After dusk there is a display 
of fireworks. (Ditchfield : Old English Customs^ p. 187 ; Dyer : 
British Popular Customs, p. 211. See also Chambers's Book of 
Days, vol. i. p. 595.) 

Wells, Holy. Water- worship was an element of all primeval 
faiths. It still survives in the superstitious reverence accorded 
to wells and springs not only by Christians of the more primitive 
type, but by Jews and Mohammedans, by savages and semi- 
savages. The Pool of Beihesda and Zemzem (q. v.), the Holy 
Well of Mecca, find their counterparts all over Europe and Asia, 
and wherever the aboriginal races dominate in the New World. 

Mr. Dorman, in his "Origin of Primitive Superstitions," tells 
us how the tribes of Central America, Mexico, and New Mexico 
had their sacred springs, and mentions the various sacrifices 
ofl'ered to them. The Indians of Colorado regard springs that 
bubble up from the ground with awe and reverence, and bring 
their sick thither to be cured. The bubbling of the water is 
supposed to be due to spirits breathing into it, the healing power 
being ascribed to these supernatural agents. In New Mexico, 
near the thirty-fifth parallel, Lieutenant Whipple found a spring 
which from lime immemorial " had been held sacred to the rain- 



988 CURIOSITIES OF 

god." Some idea of the respect paid to this spring may be 
gathered from the fact that no animal may drink of its waters, 
and it must be annually cleansed " with ancient vases, which, 
having been transmitted from generation to generation by the 
caciques, are then placed on the walls, never to be removed." Dr. 
Bell also, in the Ethnological Journal^ informs us that in New 
Mexico, not far from Zuiii, there is a sacred spring about eight 
feet in diameter, walled around with stones, of which neither 
man nor cattle may drink. Once a year the cacique and his 
attendants perform certain religious rites at this spring, oiferings 
being presented to it. 

Again, in the Deccan and in Ceylon, trees and bushes near 
springs and wells are of common occurrence, and may frequently 
be seen covered with votive offerings. Atkinson, in his " Ori- 
ental and Western Siberia," speaking of the Bouriats, informs 
us that they have their sacred lakes or wells. In one of his 
rambles, he says, " I came upon the small and picturesque lake 
of Ikeougoun, which lies in the mountains to the north of San- 
ghin-dalai and is held in vene^;ation. They have erected a small 
wooden temple on the shore, and here they come to sacrifice, 
offering up milk, butter, and the fat of animals, which they burn 
on the little altars. The large rock in the lake is with them a 
sacred stone on which some rude figures are traced ; and on the 
bank opposite they place rods with small silk flags having in- 
scriptions printed on them." In Northern Asia, writes Sir John 
Lubbock, in his " Origin of Civilization," the Tunguses and 
Yotyaks worship various springs ; and in the tenth century a 
schism took place in Persia among the Armenians, one party 
being accused of despising the holy well of Yagarschiebat. 

In Northern Europe almost every village has its sacred spring, 
and Danish folk-lore tells us of the traditionary origin of many 
of the wishing wells still regarded with so much superstitious 
reverence. Thus, near Harrested, in Seeland, is the far-famed 
St. Knud's Well, which is much visited by persons afflicted with 
bodily ailments, and also by those anxious to gain an insight 
into futurity, — it having suddenly gushed forth, runs the legend, 
on the spot where Duke Knud Lavard was treacherously mur- 
dered by the king's son Magnus, in the year 1129. In the 
same locality is Helen's Well, which has acquired a wide-spread 
celebrity on account of its miraculous virtues. On St. John's 
Day pilgrimages are made to it by the sick and crippled, many 
travelling from distant parts to visit it. According to one tra- 
ditionary account, given by Thorpe in his " Northern Mythol- 
ogy," Helen was a Scanian princess, and much famed for her 
beauty. A king fell in love with her ; and, as he could not win 
her affection, he resolved on violence. In her distress, Helen 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 989 

fled from place to place, pursued by the king ; and when, on 
reaching the sea-shore, the king was about to seize her, she 
plunged into the deep. But she did not perish, for a large stone 
rose from the bottom of the ocean and received her, on which 
she floated over to Seeland. On the spot where she first set her 
foot there sprang forth a fountain, which still bears her name. 

Sir John Lubbock also adds that in the Scotch islands are 
many sacred wells, and that he himself has seen the holy well 
in one of the islands completely surrounded by the little off'erings 
of the peasantry, consisting principally of rags and halfpence. 
One may further quote the testimony of Mr. Campbell, who in 
his " Popular Tales of the West Highlands" writes thus: "Holy 
healing wells are common all over the Highlands, and the people 
still leave offerings of pins and nails and bits of rag, though few 
would confess it. There is a well in Islay where I myself have, 
after drinking, deposited copper caps among a hoard of pins and 
buttons and similar gear placed in chinks and trees at the edge 
of the Witches' Well. There is another well with similar offer- 
ings freshly placed beside it in Loch Maree." Among further 
illustrations, he informs us how a small well in the Black Isle of 
Cromarty has miraculous healing powers, and adds, " A country- 
woman tells me that about forty years ago she remembers it 
being surrounded by a crowd of people every first Tuesday in 
June, who bathed in and drank of it before sunrise. Each 
patient tied a string of rag to one of the trees that overhung it 
before leaving." 

The same custom obtains at various holy wells in Ireland. 
Indeed, it survives in all countries where Eoman Catholicism 
flourishes, which is not surprising when it is borne in mind that 
the Eoman Church had a special prayer for blessing clouts used 
for the cure of diseases. At Wierre-Effroy, in France, where 
the water of St. Godeleine's Well is esteemed efficacious for 
ague, rheumatism, gout, and all affections of the limbs, a hetero- 
geneous collection of crutches, bandages, rolls of rag, and other 
rejected adjuncts of medical treatment is to be seen hanging 
upon the surrounding shrubs. These are intended as thank- 
offerings and testimonies of restoration. Other springs, famous 
for curing ophthalmia, abound in the same district ; and here, 
too, bandages, shades, guards, and rags innumerable are ex- 
hibited. 

■■^ The most famous of these sacred places in England are the 
wells at Tissington in Derbyshire (see Well-Dressing), and St. 
Winifred's well at Hol_ywell. 

Cornwall boasts of the well of St. Madron, near Penzance, 
and another at Gulval. The latter is thus described in Gilbert's 
"Parochial History of Cornwall:" "To this place numbers of 



990 CURIOSITIES OF 

people, time out of mind, have resorted for pleasure and profit 
of their health, as the credulous countrj^-people do in these days, 
not only to drink the waters thereof, but to inquire after the life 
or death of their absent friends ; where, being arrived, they de- 
mand the question at the well whether such a person by name 
be living, in health, sick, or dead. If the party be living and in 
health, the still quiet water of the well-pit, as soon as the ques- 
tion is put, will instantly bubble or boil up as a pot ; but if it 
remain quiet it is an indication that the party is dead." 
^ Throughout the British isles there are numerous holy wells 
where the passer-by has but to breathe a wish and drop a pin or 
other valueless offering into the water to obtain what he wants. 
Such is St. Helen's well, near Sefton, Lancashire, the bottom of 
which, says Mr. Hampson, in his " Medii ^vi Kalendarium," "I 
have frequently seen almost covered with pins, which must have 
been thrown in for this purpose." It seems that young ladies 
have still continued up to recent times to throw pins into this 
well, and to draw conclusions as to the fidelity of their lovers, 
the date of marriage, and so forth, from the turning of the pin 
to the north or any other point of the compass. 

Wepebort. (Ger., "Willow Wheel.") An apparatus that 
forms part of the rural German festivities on St. Sylvester's Day, 
or ]N"ew Year's Eve. This consists of a wheel made of willow, in 
the centre of which there is a gilded ornament that flashes like 
a star. At the extremity of the spokes on the exterior of the 
rim there is a succession of spikes, upon which apples are stuck. 
Just after midnight the bearer throws it into the house of his 
lady-love, demanding a token in return. He then fires a pistol, 
and runs away at the top of his speed, pursued by the inmates 
of the house, who, if he is caught and brought back, compel 
him to drink rothwasser and ride astride of the pot-hanger. 

Werburga, St., patron saint of Chester. Her festival is 
celebrated on the day of her death, February 3. 

St. Werburga was the daughter of a king of Mercia, and 
flourished in the seventh century. She was abbess of Eepandum, 
and founded many convents. She died in 708, and her body was 
interred at Hamburg. In the reign of King Alfred her remains 
were translated to Chester. The cathedral of Chester was dedi- 
cated to her in 800. Her relics were scattered in the reign 
of Henry YIII., but her shrine was converted into the episcopal 
throne of the cathedral. The monument is of stone, embellished 
with antique images of the kings of Mercia. Many miraculous 
cures and preservations of the city of Chester from assaults and 
fire are attributed to St. Werburga's intercessions. In 1180 a 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 991 

fire broke out which threatened to consume the city ; but it is 
related that the shrine of the virgin was carried in procession, 
and that immediately the fire was extinguished. 

Wheel. In many modern ceremonies which survive as relics 
of ancient paganism, a wheel itself or some rotary motion sug- 
gests solar symbolism. G-rimm's " Teutonic Mythology" has 
shown a curious analogy between the very words sun and wheel. 
After explaining that the sun was likened to a wheel of fire and 
the element blazing out of him was represented in the shape of 
a wheel, he continues : 

" The Gothic letter O [ = HV] is the very symbol of the sun, 
and plainly shows the shape of a wheel ; we must therefore sup- 
pose it to have been the initial of a Goth. Jivil = AS. hweol, ON. 
hvel. From ' hvel' was developed the Icel. hiol, Swed. Dan. hjul, 
O. Swed. hiughl ; and from ' hweol, hweohl' the Engl, wheel^ J^ethl. 
wlel, and Fris. fial. In view of all these variations, some have even 
ventured to bring in the ON. jol^ Swed. Dan. jul [Yule], the name 
of the winter solstice, and fasten upon it also the meaning of 
wheel ; on that hypothesis the two forms must have parted com- 
pany very early, supposing the Gothic name of November, jVw^m, 
to be cognate. The word wheel seems to be of the same root as 
while, Goth, hveila, OHG-. huUa, i.e., revolving time." 

In many parts of Germany it is customary to wrap straw 
around an old cart-wheel, set it on fire, and send it rolling down 
a hill. Barrels are sometimes substituted. Elsewhere lighted 
torches are carried round in a sunwise movement (see Pradak- 
shina). The burning of the Clavie (q. v.) is an analogous Brit- 
ish custom, one of the few that have survived, though they were 
once very common in England-and Scotland as well as Ireland. 
Originally it is more than probable that these ceremonies were 
part of the Midsummer rites (see John the Baptist, St.), but 
when their solar origin had been forgotten they naturally at- 
tached themselves to the feasts of the principal local saints or 
other chief holidays. Thus, in Northern Germany Easter is 
generally the favored day, as St. John's Eve is in Southern. 
Germany also yields us examples of burning wheels on St. 
Michael's Day (September 29) and St. Martin's Day (November 
11). On St. Peter's Day (February 22) the children in West- 
phalia are wont to go begging from door to door, and as they 
beg they turn an old wheel round and round. 

Although the wheel figures also in the fetes on French soil, 
there are no accounts of its being rolled down the side of a hill 
as in Germany. Still in both countries the ceremonies were sup- 
posed to be a propitiation of fortune. In Germany at several 
places along the Moselle, notably at Konz, if the wheel rolled 



992 CURIOSITIES OF 

down burning to the river an abundant vintage was expected. 
In France, in the former province of Poitou, a burning wheel is 
carried around the fields at midsummer in the expectation of se- 
curing a blessing on the crop. M. Gaidoz in " Le l)ieu Gaulois du 
Soleil" quotes an old document which shows that burning wheels 
figured among the ceremonies at one time in Lorraine. The trans- 
action took place in 1565 between Madame lolande de Bassom- 
pierre, an abbess of Epinal, and the magistrates of that place, in 
which that lady transfers to the town a portion of the forest, so 
that in future she might be free from the obligation of furnish- 
ing " la roue de Fortune et la paille pour la former." As Epi- 
nal is near the German frontier, the celebration at that place 
would probably be the same as at Konz; and the two towns not 
being far distant from each other helps to confirm this sugges- 
tion. There is a further confirmation in the fact, which at the 
same time gives importance to these customs, that in both places 
the civic authorities took part in them. At the Konz ceremo- 
nies the maire of Sierk officiated, and received a basket of cher- 
ries, " according to ancient custom," for so doing. At Epinal it 
was the magistrates that entered into the negotiations with the 
abbess about the wheel and the straw, showing that they took 
some part in the aifair as a public business. In Paris, at the 
bonfires on St. John's Day, the king attended and was an 
important actor in the rite. These details are evidence that 
the customs were no children's pastimes, but were serious per- 
formances. 

Whitebait Banquet at Greenwich. Properly speaking, there 
is no such fish as whitebait. The popular en/re'^; served at London 
or Blackwall dinners and which bears that name, and the similar 
dishes ofiered in American restaurants, consist of whatever mess 
of " fry" fishermen are able to catch. When first the attention 
of naturalists was turned to whitebait it was generally held to 
be the young of the shad, until it was proved that the shad is 
not common enough in English waters nor prolific enough to 
furnish forth the vast quantities of whitebait eaten in England. 
Then Yarrell, in 1828, proclaimed that the fish was a distinct 
member of the herring family, and baptized it Clupea alba. It 
is singular that it should not have occurred to so practical a nat- 
uralist as Yarrell to look for an example of Clupea alba contain- 
ing eggs or milt, because every fish, no matter what its size, 
must spawn at some time. No one has ever seen an example of 
whitebait with spawn in it. Dr. Gunther's conclusion may be 
accepted that five-sixths of the fish which are served under the 
name of whitebait are the young of either the sprat or the 
herring. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 993 

It is sometimes asserted that whitebait was first brought to 
public notice in 1780 by one Eichard Conner, a fisherman of 
Blackwall. But so far back as 1612, at the general feast of the 
founder of the Charterhouse, given on May 28 in Stationers' 
Hall, London, we read that among the delicacies were " six 
dishes of whitebait." It is even conjectured that the savory 
fry was not unknown to Henry YIII. and to Queen Elizabeth 
at their banquets in the palace of Greenwich. In the early 
part of this century Lovegrove's " Bait-Kitchen" at Blackwall 
was a favorite resort of Londoners. But whitebait is especially 
famous through the annual dinner of Enghsh cabinet ministers 
at Greenwich. 

The history of the dinner is involved in some antiquarian 
doubt. But all accounts agree that it was originally celebrated 
at Dagenham, a village in Essex. On December 17, 1707, an 
extraordinarily high tide in the Thames broke down a part of 
the sea-wall that protected the neighboring marshes. About 
one thousand acres of land were flooded. After many unsuc- 
cessful efforts, the breach was closed in 1721. The land was all 
drained, save sixty acres, still known as Dagenham Breach, or 
Dagenham Lake, and constituting a large sheet of reedy water 
well stocked with pike, carp, roach, and eels. So important was 
deemed the maintenance of the restored embankment that a 
commission was appointed by Parliament to make a periodical 
inspection. This inspection, in course of time, became little more 
than an excuse for an annual holiday. The commissioners, 
mostly City magnates, with Sir Eobert Preston, M.P. for Dover, 
as president, and some members of the Admiralty, went down in 
state just about the time when Parliament broke up in the 
autumn. After the official inspection, a dish of freshly caught 
whitebait was served up in the board-room, — the latter being 
situated in a building erected for the accommodation of the 
superintendents, close to the flood-gates, and usually known on 
the river as the Breach House. One year Prime Minister Pitt, 
who was always a great favorite with the City men, was invited 
by the commissioners to partake of their annual fish dinner. He 
was so highly pleased that next year some of his political col- 
leagues and private friends were included in the invitation. And 
so every year the dtnner became more sumptuous and acquired 
more and more the character of a ministerial banquet. Even 
after the inspection was given up Sir Eobert Preston continued 
to send out the annual invitations until his death in 1834, 
when the dinner was transferred to Greenwich and became 
strictly ministerial. 

Such is one account of the Whitebait Dinner. Another, 
equally circumstantial, differs somewhat in detail. According 

63 



994 CURIOSITIES OF 

to this, Sir Robert Preston had a cottage on the banks of Dagen- 
ham Lake. He called it his fishing cottage, and often in the 
spring retired tbither with a friend or two, to forget the cares 
of state and of business. His most frequent guest was George 
Rose, Secretary to the Treasury. One day Mr. Rose intimated 
to Sir Robert that Mr. Pitt, of whose friendship they were both 
justly proud, would no doubt much delight in the comfort of 
such a retreat. Sir Robert cordially accepted the suggestion. 
A day was named, and the Premier was accordingly invited, and 
received with great cordiality at the fishing cottage. He was 
80 well pleased with his visit and the hospitality of the baronet 
— they were all considered two if not three bottle men — that, on 
taking leave, Mr. Pitt readily accepted an invitation lor the fol- 
lowing year, Sir Robert engaging to remind him at the proper 
time. Yov a few years, Mr. Pitt, accompanied by " Old George 
Rose," was a regular visitor at Dagenham Breach. But the dis- 
tance was great for those days. Railways had not yet started 
into existence, and the going and coming were considered some- 
what inconvenient. 

But Sir Robert — hearty Briton as he was — was equal to 
the occasion. Why not dine near London ? Greenwich was 
suggested as the new meeting-place, and the suggestion was 
accepted. 

The party was now changed from a trio to a quartette, Mr. 
Pitt having requested to be allowed to bring Lord Camden. The 
ice thus broken, a fifth guest was soon added to the number, — 
namely, Mr. Long, afterwards Lord Farnborough. All still were 
the guests of Sir Robert Preston ; but, one by one, other men of 
position — all of the Tory school — were invited, until at last Lord 
Camden reasonably remarked that, as they w^ere all dining at a 
tavern, it was only fair that Sir Robert should be released from 
the expense. It was then arranged that the dinner should be 
given as usual by Sir Robert Preston, — that is to say, at his invi- 
tation, — and he insisted on still contributing a, buck and cham- 
pagne ; but the remaining charges were to be defrayed by the 
other guests, and on this arrangement the dinners continued to 
be held annually till the death of Mr. Pitt. Sir Robert Preston 
was requested, in the following year, to summon the several 
guests, the list of whom by this time included most of the cab- 
inet ministers. The time for meeting was usually after Trinity 
Monday, a short period before the end of the session. 

Whatever the exact origin of the Whitebait banquets, they 
continued to flourish at Greenwich, whether Whig or Tory were 
the head of the feast, until 1870, when they were discontinued, 
but were revived by the Disraeli ministry in 1874. 

Some of the corporations of London indulge in a similar 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 995 

annual festivity, and the town council of Exeter likewise cel- 
ebrates an annual dinner of which whitebait is the distinctive 
feature. 

White Horse of Berkshire. A colossal representation of 
a galloping horse cut in outline on the side of a steep hill, known 
as White Horse Hill, near Great Faringdon, Berkshire. The 
cutting is done in the form of trenches eighteen feet wide and 
six deep hollowed out in the yellowish-white clay soil, but seen 
from a distance against the dark background of herbage the out- 
lines appear to be delicately traced in chalk crayons. The figure 
is five hundred and ten feet long, the horse's ears alone measuring 
forty -five feet, and its eye six feet, and the space it occupies is 
about two acres. It can be seen at a distance of fifteen miles 
across country on a clear day. 

No exact evidence can be adduced regarding the origin of this 
remarkable figure. Thomas Hughes, in his " Scouring of the 
White Horse" (1857), is inclined to accept the popular tradition 
that it was carved to commemorate the victory of King Ethelred 
and his brother Alfred, afterwards Alfred the Great, over the 
Danes at Ashdown, in the year 871. The actual site of this 
great battle is not known, and has been the subject of some dis- 
cussion ; but the balance of probability is in favor of its having 
been fought in the neighborhood of White Horse Hill, on the 
summit of which, at the height of eight hundred and ninety- 
three feet above the sea, is an ancient encampment, consisting 
of a plain of more than eight acres in extent, surrounded by a 
rampart and ditch. This enclosure is called Ufiington Castle, 
and immediately beneath it is the stupendous engraving of the 
White Horse. 

Once every three years in September the peasantry used to 
assemble and carefully remove any of the turf that had en- 
croached upon the figure, a ceremony known as " Scouring the 
White Horse." Since Mr. Hughes renewed attention to both the 
Horse and the ceremony, the latter has occurred every year. 
These meetings form a sort of rural carnival to the people for 
fifty miles around. After the trenches have been carefully 
cleaned and scoured, the participants engage in rustic and 
athletic games of various kinds, and prizes are distributed to the 
most successful. The festival lasts for two days, and, according 
to immemorial usage, the lord of the manor entertains the par- 
ticipants at his own expense. 

White Thursday. (Welsh, Jeu-nhydn.) In Cornwall this 
was the name given to the last Thursday that was one clear 
week before Christmas Day. According to tradition, this was 



996 CURIOSITIES OF 

the annual recurrence of the period when black tin or ore was 
first melted or turned into white tin or metal in these parts. 
Hence until quite recently the tinners claimed a holiday on this 
day. 

Whit Monday or Whitsun Monday. The day after Whit- 
sunday. It is now one of the English Bank holidays (q. v.) 
which owe their being to the efforts of Sir John Lubbock. This 
and Whitsun Tuesday were anciently semi-holidays in England. 

Southey, in his " Common-Place Book" (1849, Second Series, 
p. 336), gives the following extract from Mrs. Fienne's MSS. : 

" At Lichfield they have a custom at Whitsuntide, ye Monday 
and Tuesday, called the Green Bower Feast, by which they hold 
their charter. The bailiff^ and sheriff assist at the ceremony of 
dressing up babies with garlands of flowers and greens, and 
carry them in procession through all the streets, and then 
assemble themselves at the market-place, and so go in a solemn 
procession through the great street to a hill beyond the town, 
where is a large green bower made, in which they have their 
feast. Many smaller bowers are made around for company, and 
for booths to sell fruits, sweetmeats, gingerbread," etc. 

In Lancashire the Whitsun fairs were held on Whit Monday, 
and Hiring Fairs (q. v.) are still kept up in this county and else- 
where. At Hinckley in the same county until the beginning of 
the nineteenth century the custom was kept up of millers riding 
in procession dressed in ribbons, with what they called the King 
of the Millers at their head. 

A writer (in 1787) describing one of these fairs says. To the 
old ceremony of riding millers, many improvements were made 
upon a more extensive and significant plan, — several personages 
introduced that bore allusions to the manufacture and were con- 
nected with the place. Old Hugo Baron de Grentemaisnel, who 
made his first appearance in 1786, armed in light and easy paste- 
board armor, was this second time armed cap-a-pie in heavy 
sinker plate, with pike and shield, on the latter the arms of the 
town. The representative baron of Hinckley had the satisfac- 
tion of being accompanied by his lady, the Baroness Adeliza, 
habited in the true antique style, with steeple hat, ruff-points, 
mantle, etc., all in suitable colors, each riding on nimble white 
steeds properly caparisoned; they were preceded by the town 
banner, and two red streamers embroidered with their respective 
names. Several bands of music gave a cheerful spirit to the 
pageant, but more particularly the militia band from Leicester. 
The framework knitters, wool-combers, butchers, carpenters, 
etc., had each their plays, and rode in companies bearing devices 
or allusions to their different trades. Two characters well sup- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 997 

ported were Bishop Blaise and his chaplain, who figured at the 
head of the wool-combers. In their train appeared a pretty 
innocent young pair, a gentle shepherd and shepherdess, the 
latter carrying a lamb, the emblem of her little self more than 
of the trade. Some other little folks, well dressed, were mounted 
on ponies, holding instruments the marks of their fathers' busi- 
nesses, and ornamented with ribbons of all colors waving in the 
air. (See Nichols : History of Hinckley, 1813, p. 678.) 

A correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine (1783, vol. liii. 
p. 578) says there seems to be a trace of the descent of the Holy 
Ghost on the heads of the apostles in what passes at "Whitsuntide 
Fair in some parts of Lancashire, where one person holds a stick 
over the head of another, whilst a third, unperceived, strikes the 
stick, and thus gives a smart blow to the first. 

The London Graphic for May 19, 1894, thus describes the Whit 
Monday bank holiday of that year: "London was a wonderful 
sight. Every place with a pretence to providing entertainment 
was full, and yet all day long people seemed to be getting some- 
where. Every omnibus was full on top ; the parks, but for the 
absence of banners, might have been the scene of demonstra- 
tions in favor of more Whit Mondays, and every restaurant 
made hay while the sun shone or the money lasted. Even the 
museums — those curious places in which to seek amusement — 
kept their turnstiles moving all day long, and the National Gal- 
lery held quite a reception. But this ability to be easily amused 
is one of the pleasantest and perhaps it is also one of the most 
pathetic sights of London taking a holiday. Go where you 
would on Monday, there you would see people upon whom ' toil 
had left a furrowed trace on every feature of their face,' sitting 
down in the sun and doing nothing but ' doing nothing.' Some- 
times they carried babies, venerable-looking little creatures who 
had yet to learn the difference between Bank Holidays and other 
days ; and sometimes they eat fragments of stodgy-looking lunch 
out of baskets or pieces of newspaper. But mostly they simply 
sat there, perhaps beating time to the tune of any band within 
hearing, or perhaps vaguely conscious that it was a very pleasant 
thing to have, for once in a way, nothing much to bother them. 
In the places just outside London — Greenwich, Richmond and 
the River, Happy Hampton and Chingford — the people saw the 
country as sweet as English spring could make it. Besides, the 
entrepreneurs had provided special entertainments for Monday's 
visitors. In Epping Forest, as on Ilampstead Heath, the don- 
keys had been for weeks in training, and for days before the 
proprietors of 'Aunt Sally' and other games of skill had»been 
selecting carefully deceptive places in which to set up this form 
of amusement. Their ingenuity met with an abundant reward 



998 CURIOSITIES OF 

during the latter part of Monday, and all day long in the cocoa- 
nut groves of Epping Forest natives might have been seen gath- 
ering fruit. At Hampton Court the boat- builders had prepared 
for the occasion by putting up their prices, a precaution for 
which they will not be very much blamed by those who have 
been privileged to observe the experimental methods by which 
the Bank holiday waterman propels his craft ; and at Greenwich, 
where the amusements are not so varied, consisting mainly of 
rolling down Greenwich Hill and comparing watches with the 
Observatory clock, the restaurateurs of the neighborhood had 
risen to the occasion by providing unusual quantities of ' tea and 
s'rimps.' 

" In the great places of entertainment — the emporiums of 
amusement we might almost call them — a new era has set in, an 
era which began with the tropical summer of last year and to 
which a day like Whit Monday was eminently favorable : the 
era of the cigarette and the small table. Earl's Court was per- 
haps the first to begin it ; the Crystal Palace has been the latest 
to adopt it. It arose from the disposition, which Earl's Court 
was the first to discover, of the public to enjoy itself after the 
Continental fashion, — which is to sit at a small table in company 
with a cigarette and coffee and the music of a first-class band. 
If the first-class band can first accompany a first-class dinner 
at a reasonable price, so much the better, but the small table and 
the music and the illuminations, and the presence of hundreds 
of other couples enjoying them in the same way as ourselves, 
these are the essentials." 

On Whitsun Monday a curious sight was formerly to be seen 
in St. Petersburg. Mothers belonging to the merchant class 
arrayed their marriageable daughters in their best attire, hung 
about their necks the jewelry and silver-ware which formed a 
part of their dowry, and took them to the Summer Garden to be 
inspected and proposed for by the young men. 

Whitsunday, or Pentecost. An annual feast of the East- 
ern and Western Churches instituted in commemoration of the 
day upon which the Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles 
and when the three thousand were baptized. It occurs exactly 
fifty days after Easter Sunday. The entire fifty days, known as 
Whitsuntide or Pentecost, was an especial season in the early 
Church for the administration of adult baptism. On Whitsunday 
the catechumens, and those who had been baptized in the course 
of the season, presented themselves in albs, or white garments. 
Hence the name Whit- or White-Sunday. Another etymon is 
suggested in a poem of the fourteenth century, which assumes 
that whit is a corruption of wit or wisdom : 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 999 

This day Whitsonday is cald, 

For wisdome and wit sevenfald 

Was gov en to the Apostles on this day. 

Pentecost means " fiftieth." The feast was alternatively so called 
because the first Whitsunday occurred on the Jewish Pentecost, 
or Shebuoth (q. v.), which is exactly fifty days after Passover. 
Hence the Christian Pentecost bears the same numerical relation 
to Easter that the Jewish Pentecost does to the Passover. 

Whitsunday Avas kept as a Christian festival from very early 
times. It is mentioned by Origen and in the canons of the 
Council of Elvira (a.d. 306). Benedict XIY. mentions many 
customs which formerly prevailed on this day in some places, 
as the blessing of the candle, the blowing of trumpets at the 
" Yeni, Sancte Spiritus" in the Whitsunday mass, the discharge 
of fire from the roof, the letting doves loose in the church, and 
the scattering of roses. Doves are a symbol of the Holy Ghost : 
hence they frequently reappear in the popular customs associated 
with the day. In Holland, according to Picart, children used to 
go to church with doves in their hands. Naogeorgus has these 
lines : 

On Whitsunday whyte pigeons tame in strings from heaven flie, 
And one that framed is of wood still hangeth in the skie. 
Thou seest how they with idols play, and teache the people too, 
None otherwise than little gyrls with puppets used to do. 

The allusion here is to the dramatization of the descent of the 
Holy Ghost which was common both in Germany and in Eng- 
land in Eoman Catholic times. Lambarde says that " when a 
child he saw in St. Paul's the descent of the Holy Spirit per- 
formed by a white pigeon let fly out of a hole in the midst of 
the roof of the great aisle, with a long censer, which, descending 
from the same place almost to the ground, was swung up and 
down at such length that it reached with one sweep almost to 
the west gate of the church, and with the other to the choir 
stairs, breathing out over the whole multitude a most pleasant 
perfume." 

A Puritan writer mentions as an historical fact that in 1640, on 
Whitsunday, in Cornwall, during service the church was struck 
by lightning, there being an awful storm, and that many were 
injured, which he regarded as a " fearfull judgment" upon cere- 
monies. But these "judgments" do not seem to have been gen- 
eral. Fosbroke remarks that Whitsunday \vas formerly " cele- 
brated in Spain with representations of the gift of the Holy 
Ghost and of thunder from engines which did much damage. 
Wafers or cakes, preceded by water, oak leaves, or burning 



1000 CURIOSITIES OF 

torches, were thrown down from the roof of the church ; small 
birds with cakes tied to their legs, and pigeons, were let loose ; 
sometimes there were tame ones tied with strings, or one of 
wood, suspended." 

Similar scenes used also to be enacted in Ireland. The Irish 
often kept the feast with milk, like the Hebrews, and with 
cakes and bread made with hot water and wheaten bran. Whit- 
sun ales (see Ales) were long in vogue in England. 

In Eome Whitsunday is celebrated with great effect, like all 
the other leading feasts of the Church. The ceremonies are 
chiefly religious. 

Whitsuntide was also noted once for the ceremony of font- 
hallowing. This was done in anticipation of the christenings 
which were to take place. The following is from Strutt's 
"Manners and Customs," iii. 174: "Among many various cere- 
monies, I find that they had one called the 'Font hallowing,' 
which was performed on Easter Even and Whitsunday Eve ; 
and, says the author of a volume of Homilies in Harl. MS. 
2371, 'in the begynnyng of holy chirch, all the children weren 
kept to be crystened on thys even, at the Font hallowyng ; but 
now, for enchesone that in so long abydynge they might dye 
without chrystendome, therefore holi chirch ordeyneth to crys- 
ten at all tymes of the yeare ; save eyght dayes before these 
Evenys, the chylde shalle abyde till the Font hallowing, if it 
may savely for perrill of death, and ells not.' " It was usual 
also in some places to strew the church floors with grass, and 
everj^where to give alms to the poor. 

A superstitious notion appears anciently to have prevailed in 
England, that " whatsoever one did ask of God upon Whitsun- 
day morning at the instant when the sun arose and play'd, God 
would grant it him." See Arise Evans's " Echo to the Yoice 
from Heaven ; or, A Narration of his Life," 1652, p. 9. He 
says " he went up a hill to see the sun rise betimes on Whitsun- 
day morning," and saw it at its rising " skip, play, dance, and 
turn about like a wheel." 

Whitsuntide in England was long a semi-holiday season, es- 
pecially among the young folk, who used to indulge in various 
games and amusements. Drop-handkerchief was played in 
Greenwich Park as late as 1825. Many marriages in humble 
life have had their origin in the games of this season. The gay- 
eties were continued through Whit Monday and Whit Tuesday, 
and were all of a similar character. 

In the Kennet Valley, near Newbury, Whitsuntide is the 
great village holiday. Decked out in their best clothes, adorned 
with ribbons and banners, the men parade the lanes preceded by 
a band, and march to the church, where a special service is held. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 1001 

Then they adjourn to a barn and have dinner, and later in the 
day go to one or two of the principal houses in the neighbor- 
hood, where dancing takes place on the lawn or drives, while 
the band plays vigorously. " Village sports, running, and racing 
are not uncommon at these club feasts, and at Brindle, near 
Preston, Lancashire, we have seen a most graceful company of 
morris-dancers, consisting of about sixteen young men, dressed 
in tight-fitting purple knickerbockers and stockings, with foot- 
ball 'sweaters' of the same color. They had staves in their 
hands, and danced up the village street, striking their staves 
together in rhythmic time, while a band played stirring melo- 
dies. It was a graceful and pleasing spectacle, and may still be 
seen in the neighborhood of Preston and Chorley." (Ditch- 
field : Old Eyiglish Customs, p. 128.) 

The Irish peasants believe that on a particular day at Whit- 
suntide all those who have been drowned in the sea come up 
and ride over the waves on white horses and hold strange 
revels. A fisherman who remained on the water on the night 
of this ghastly pageant saw a crowd of the dead on white horses 
making their way towards him. Their faces were pale with the 
hue of death, and their eyes burned with fire. They stretched 
out thin long arms to lay hold on him, but he managed to escape 
from their fearful grasp. As he landed, however, one of the 
horsemen rode close to him, and he saw the face of a friend 
who had been drowned the year before, and heard a voice call- 
ing to him to escape. Accordingly he fled at full speed, never 
daring to look back to see whether he was pursued. 

A mild variation of the Feast of Fools (g. v.) was in ancient 
times performed on Whitsunday in Chalons-sur-Saone and other 
French cities. This was known as the Dance of the Canons. 
Immediately after complines the dean, the canons, and the 
minor priests went in procession from the church to the re- 
fectory or other large room in the monastery. There, holding 
on to the ends of one another's surplices, two by two they made 
the circuit of the apartment, chanting the responses of the feast. 
Though the pastime was an innocent one, it shared the general 
condemnation of the Church against the Feast of Fools, and was 
finally abolished through the efforts of Cyrus de Thiard, Bishop 
of Chalons-sur-Saone. 

At Whitsuntide the Servians celebrate the Feast of the Kra- 
litze, or Queen. The young girls assemble ; one represents 
the standard-bearer, another the king, and a third the queen 
herself, who, her face veiled, and attended by a maid of honor, 
stops to dance and sing before each house in the village. The 
subject of these songs is generally marriage, the choice of a hus- 
band, the happiness of married life, or the cares of maternity. 



1002 



CURIOSITIES OF 



At the end of each stanza they repeat the refrain, "Lelio," ihe 
name of the divinity who presided over love among the ancient 
Slavs, and who seems to be the same as the Lado of the Eussians 
and the Selum of the Poles. 

They also repeat in procession symbolical chants in honor 
of the Vila, or nymphs of the forest, whom they represent as 
dancing under the trees where the fruit is ripening; or of the 
Radischa (elves), who delight in shaking the dew from the 
flowers and leaves, and who, pursuing some nymph, tr}^ to entice 
her into the shade of the forest by the promise that she shall 
there, by her mother's side, spin precious silk with a golden distaff. 
On Whitsunday the churches in Eussia are decorated with 
birch-tree boughs, and young birch-irees are stood up in every 
corner, brought thither by the peasantry. The tradition is that 
one must shed as many tears for his sins as there are dew-drops 
on the birch bough which he carries if he have no flowers. In 
spite of a recent law which forbids the destruction of young 

trees, this Pentecostal cus- 
tom is winked at by the au- 
thorities. But the well-to-do 
classes, and indeed many poor 
people who make a special 
effort, bring a bouquet of 
flowers with them to church. 
Every one is clad in white or 
light colors, as at Easter, even 
those who are in mourning 
having donned the bluish- 
gray which serves them for 
festive garb. 

In Naples the festival of 
Monte Yergine begins on 
Whitsunday and lasts for 
three days. The central fea- 
ture is the pilgrimage to a 
church on Monte Yergine, 
near Avellino. This being a 
day's journey from Naples, all 
sorts of vehicles are called 
into requisition, which on the 
return journey are decorated 
with flowers and boughs of trees. A donkey and a bullock, 
gayly bedecked with ribbons, frequently form the driving-team. 
Numerous bands of merrymakers bearing sticks with flowers 
and pictures of the Madonna dance untiringly alongside. 

But it is in Holland that Whitsuntide " under the name of 




Dutch Children's Whitsunday Festival. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 1003 

Pinkster (q. v.), is most ceremoniously observed. Sunday, Mon- 
day, and Tuesday exceed even the Christmas season in impor- 
tance. Processions of children carrying doves in their hands 
appear in all the streets. Formerly it was also the custom for 
maidens in cities and villages to bear one of their number on a 
plank upon their shoulders and collect offerings of money irom 
the passers-by in the streets or the dwellers in the houses. 

Whit or Whitsun Tuesday. The Tuesday after Whitsun- 
day. Formerly the Whitsun festivities were kept up until this 
day in England, as they still are in many Catholic countries. 
The Eton Montem originally held on Innocents' Day was later 
transferred to Whit Tuesday. 

For a long time in England Whit Monday and Whit Tuesday 
were reproductions of May-Day, except in the matter of mar- 
riage, for it was deemed unlucky to marry in May, while it was 
considered fortunate to marry during Whitsuntide. But the 
revelries were reproduced. Thus, poles were erected and adorned 
with flowers and flags, and merry meetings were held around 
them with games and dances. Even clubs were instituted for 
the maintenance of these amusements. At Necton, ISTorfolk, his 
seat, a Major Mason established a guild for rural sports upon 
these days. 

William, St., patron of Bruges. His festival is celebrated 
on January 10, the anniversary of his death. William Berriiyer 
was born in the twelfth century of an illustrious family, and was 
educated by his uncle, Peter the Hermit, Archdeacon of Soissons. 
He was made canon of Soissons and afterwards of Paris. He 
entered the Cistercian order, and was made abbot of Challis. In 
the year 1200 he was consecrated Archbisbop of Bruges. He 
was about to start on a mission among the Albigenses when he 
died on January 10, 1209. His body was interred in his cathe- 
dral, and his relics were preserved until 1562, when they were 
burnt by the Huguenots. A bone of his arm is shown at Chal- 
lis, and a rib in the College of Navarre at Paris. The saint was 
canonized by Pope Honorius III. in 1218. 

In art St. William is represented holding a monstrance, or in 
adoration before one, to show his great devotion towards the 
host. He is also represented with tears on his cheeks, for he is 
said to have wept whenever he heard of some scandal in his 
diocese or some oppression of the poor. 

Willibrod, St., Dancing Festival of. An annual ceremony 
performed on the first Tuesday after Whitsunday at Echtcrnach, 
a small village near. Treves, in the grand duchy of Luxemburg. 



1004 CURIOSITIES OF 

St. Willibrod, who lived in tbe seventh century, was to the 
Netherlands and the Flemish and Lower Countries w^hat St. 
Patrick was to Ireland. He carried thither the Christian faith, 
and finally, after a lifetime of missionary work, sought rest for his 
last days in Echternach, where he founded an abbey. Tradition 
saj's that his return to the village was celebrated by the sacred 
dances which are renewed every year. Only during the French 
Revolution was the custom interrupted. The festival now at- 
tracts thousands of pilgrims from the neighboring provinces, as 
well as curious spectators trom all parts of the world. Most of 
the former come on foot, camping wherever they can in the open 
air or in barns. Those who are musical bring their instruments 
with them. In the morning all this crowd form themselves on 
the German territory beyond the bridge across the Sure, which 
is the river frontier between Germany and the grand duchy. A 
priest, who must be a native of Echternach, makes a short ad- 
dress and then places himself at the head of the pilgrims and 
leads the procession across the bridge to the old church. The 
advance guard sing the litany of the saint in a calm, dignified, 
religious tone which strangely contrasts with the clamors of the 
thousand instruments and the extraordinary dances in the rear. 
These are nothing but repeated jumps. The higher the jump 
the greater the evidence of devotion. Arriving at the old 
church, the priests bless the many articles which the pilgrims 
wish to place under the saint's patronage. Mass is celebrated, 
everybody partakes of communion, and the pilgrims spend the 
rest of the day in the streets of the village, where a fete some- 
thing like the Flemish Kermesse is celebrated. 

Wilmington Giant. A rude figure of a man, colossal in 
proportions, cut in outline on a hill of the South Downs, near 
Wilmington, Surrey, England, the slope being so steep that the 
figure appears almost upright, and by its size and altitude brings 
to mind the Colossus of Ehodes. 

Until recently, few comparatively were aware of its existence, 
/for it had been so nearly obliterated by the turf that it required 
a peculiar light to be easily traced ; and those who looked on 
the " Long Man," as it was locally called, were not likely to 
recognize the interest of the inquiry which it had the power to 
awaken. At length the figure became known as the Wilmington 
Giant, and as such it has undergone some restoration. The 
Giant is two hundred and forty feet in length, while the head is 
above twenty-one feet in diameter. In each of the outstretched 
arms is a club or staff. 

These clubs are sometimes supposed to have a gnomonic char- 
acter, — that is, they may indicate the hours of the day, accord- 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



1005 



ing to the shadows that are thrown upon the surface. At noon 
the sun is exactly over the Giant's head, and the whole figure is 
then seen in its restored outline; while the most casual observer 
can easily trace by the shadows, as they lessen or deepen in tone, 
the hours before or after noon. If the whole surface were kept 
clean, as is the case with the White Horse of Berkshire (q. v.), 
this power would be intensified; realizing which, we are the 
better able to understand the part it would play in regulating 
and directing the move- 
ments of the ancient Brit- 
ons. It has indeed been 
calculated that, with the 
chalk fully exposed to view, 
it could have been used as a 
day-signal and made the 
means of communicating 
over a vast area. 

Another suggestion is 
worth considering. Csesar 
in his notice of the painted 
savages whom he found at 
his first landing in Britain 
refers to their habits and 
religious ceremonies, where- 
in sacrificial rites had a 
prominent place. " They 
have," he says, " figures of a 
vast size, the limbs of which 
are formed of osiers ; they 

fill these with living men, which being set on fire, the men 
perish in the flames." This terse and simple statement appears 
to have been the foundation for the belief that wicker-work idols 
of the human form were the recognized deities of the Britons. 
This idea has been introduced into ballad literature and popu- 
larized by pictorial illustrations. But recent researches have 
made plausible the belief that on sacrificial days such figures as 
the Wilmington Giant and the White Horse of Berkshire had 
hurdles of osiers placed around them as enclosures. The whole 
district over which the Giant towered was formerly occupied by 
an enormous wood, sacred to two deities knoMm as Andred and 
Andras, — in other words, the powers of nature ; and probably 
there is some connecting link between the remaining monument 
and the departed forest-like feature of the country. 




Wilmington Giant. 



Winifred, St. A noble British maiden of the seventh cen- 
tury. Eepulsing the dishonorable advances of a certain Prince 



1006 CURIOSITIES OF 

Cradocus, he cut off her head, and was straightway swallowed 
up by the earth. As to his victim, her head rolled down the 
hill, and where it stopped a miraculous spring or well gushed 
forth. St. Beuno picked it up and skilfully reunited it to the 
body, after which St. Winifred lived a life of sanctity for fifteen 
years. Her festival is celebrated on JN^ovember 3. 

St. Winifred's miraculous well is still extant in Holywell, 
Flintshire, and is the most famous of all the holy wells in the 
United Kingdom, but the statues of the Virgin Mary and of 
St. Winifred herself which decorated it seem to have disappeared 
with the Eeformation. 

Even up to the seventeenth century the well was a constant 
resort for the sick and the devout, both Catholic and Protestant. 
Pennant found the roof of the vault hung with the crutches 
of grateful cripples. But he says that the number of pilgrims 
had much decreased in his day : " In the summer still a few are 
to be seen in the water, in deep devotion, up to their chins for 
hours, sending up their prayers, or performing a number of 
evolutions round the polygonal well, or threading the arches a 
prescribed number of times." 

The fountain is enshrined within a perpendicular Gothic build- 
ing. The enormous quantity of water that bubbles up (one 
hundred tons a minute), the coloring of the stones by the red 
moss, attributed to the blood of the saint, the singular fact that, 
although intensely cold, the water never freezes, are all features 
worth notice in themselves. 

M. de Montalembert has a pleasant passage about this well: 
"At the spot where the head of this martyr of modesty struck 
the soil, there sprung up an abundant fountain, which is still 
frequented and even venerated by a population divided into 
twenty different sects, but animated by one common hatred for 
Catholic truth. This fountain has given its name to the town 
of Holywell. Its source is covered by a fine Gothic porch of 
three arches, under which it forms a vast basin, where from 
morning to evening the sick and infirm of a region ravaged by 
heresy come to bathe, with a strange confidence in the miracu- 
lous virtue of these icy waters." Some two or three years ago, 
however, the well passed into the hands of the Jesuits. 

A writer in The Senate gives this account of Holywell and its 
pilgrims as he saw them under the new conditions in 1895 : 

"The flooring of the chapel is damp with the water, the 
prayers echo with a hollow mournful sound in the chill air of 
the autumn ; the very water we know flows away, a force care- 
fully stored, to turn some flannel-works at the bottom of the 
hill ; but over all a sentiment of fervor, a wonderful warmth 
of faith, a desire to be healed and to live, with the unspoken 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 1007 

acknowledgment of weakness and sin alone in the way, give to 
the place a strange })ersonality, growing upon one curiously as 
one watches the poor thin white figures slip into the green 
water, the fingers that take tremblingly the iron rails and for a 
moment are endowed with wonderful strength to retain their 
hold, the quick-moving lips that mutter prayers alone to be 
heard in the silence; these are the things that seize for a 
moment upon one, for they are, and have always been, the 
working machinery of miracles. 

" It is amazing what the priests have done for the place, how 
well they have understood the possibilities of their new acquire- 
ment. Twenty years ago the name was scarcely known or 
unregarded, a few cases of cures there are on record, a few 
stray visitors in the summer-time of the year, but now almost 
throughout the whole year the gates are open, prayers and 
hymns are chanted, while in the warmer days excursions bring 
hundreds of sufferers up the steep hill in conveyances, and some 
there are of them who have finished the ascent to the town, 
walking alone, who had not looked to walk again. There are 
many besides who go for a pilgrimage. Two bicycles leaned 
prosaically outside against the outer wall of the chapel. Inside, 
their owners, shivering in the cold waters, muttered quickly 
their devotions, kissed, standing in the water of the inner wc41, 
the stone now smooth with many lips, and finished by plunging 
into the water head first. Afterwards I watched them slowly 
wheel their bicj'cles down the hill. The bicycles looked strangely 
prosaic, with their fat, vulgar pneumatic tires. It was incom- 
prehensible as a dream. It was above all essentially Eoman 
Catholic. 

" As to the miracles, are th^y real ? 

" Yes, I think so : false miracles do not pay ; and there are 
every year cases of semi-paralysis and nervous disorders cured 
upon dipping in the icy waters. I had myself the pleasure of 
conversing with a little child cured by the waters, as she told me, 
of hip-disease. She was certainly able to walk up the hill with 
a gait that showed but small traces of her former malady ; and 
I can believe there are several who have received temporary 
benefit, and not a few who have been more permanently restored 
to natural vigor and use of limb, by the power of faith develop- 
ing a state ot auto-suggestion, the groundwork and basis of all 
curative miracles." 

Wren, Hunting the. A custom which survives locally in the 
Isle of Man. in Essex County, England, and in Ireland, though 
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has stamped 
out its general observance. It consisted in killing wrens with 



1008 CURIOSITIES OF 

stones and carrying them about on furze bushes from house to 
house. It sometimes occurred on Christmas or on New Year, 
but most frequently on St. Stephen's Day. Hence a connection 
has been fancied between it and the stoning of the martyr. An 
Irish legend is to the eifect that one of St. Stephen's guards was 
awakened by a wren just as the prisoner was about to escape. 
The popular Manx legend, however, explains that once there 
lived on the island a beautiful elf or lorelei, who by her charms 
and songs lured many of the young men into the sea, where the 
waves, rising at her spell, swept them away to death. At last 
the people rose in a rage and attacked the sorceress, who fled in 
fear, and, being close pressed, took the form of a wren and so 
escaped. But from a higher power a decree went forth that 
every year on St. Stephen's Day she must appear as a wren, 
until it should come to pass that she perish by man's hand. 
For this reason the people of the Isle of Man devoted the hours 
between sunrise and sunset to the effort of extirpating the fairy. 
All wrens that showed themselves on this fatal day were pursued, 
pelted, fired at, and destroyed without mercy. Their feathers 
were preserved by fishermen as a preventive from death by 
shipwreck. When the chase ceased, one of the little victims was 
affixed to the top of a long pole with its wings extended, and 
carried in front of the hunters, who marched in procession to 
every house, chanting the following rhyme : 

We hunted the wren for Kobin the Bobbin, 
We hunted the wren for Jack of the Can, 

"We hunted the wren for Robin the Bobbin, 
We hunted the wren for every one. 

After making the usual circuit and collecting all the money they 
could obtain, they laid the wren on a bier and carried it in pro- 
cession to the parish churchyard, where, with a whimsical kind 
of solemnity, they made a grave, buried it, and sang dirges over 
it in the Manx language, which they called its knell. After the 
obsequies were performed, the company, outside the churchyard 
wall, formed a circle and danced to music which they had pro- 
vided for the occasion. 

At present the custom is followed only by boys, who are satis- 
fied with a far less promiscuous slaughter. A " bush," consisting 
of two hoops crossed, sometimes with a wren suspended by the 
legs in the centre, and sometimes minus the bird, is carried 
around to the singing of the quatrain already quoted. They 
collect money, and in return present each donor with a feather, 
which is supposed to avert the danger of shipwreck. Afterwards 
the bird is buried on the sea-shore (no longer in the churchyard) 
with much solemnity. 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 1009 

In Ireland groups of young villagers used to bear about a 
holly-bush adorned with ribbons and having many wrens depend- 
ing from it. " This is carried from house to house with some 
ceremony, the ' wren-boys' chanting several verses, the burthen 
of which may be collected from the following lines of their song : 

"The wren, the wren, the king of all birds, 
St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze. 
Although he is little, his family's great, 
I pray you, good landlady, give us a treat. 

" My box would speak if it had but a tongue. 
And two or three shillings would do it no wrong ; 
Sing holly, sing ivy — sing ivy, sing holly, 
A drop just to drink, it would drown melancholy. 

*' And if you draw it of the best, 
I hope in heaven your soul may rest ; 
But if you draw it of the small, 
It won't agree with the wren boys at all ; etc. 

A small piece of money is usually bestowed on them, and the 
evening concludes in merrymaking with the money thus col- 
lected." (Croker : Researches in the South of Ireland, 1824, p. 
233.) 

Ditchfield in " Old English Customs," p. 32, informs us that a 
wren-box was sold at Christie's a few years ago which used to 
be carried in procession in some parts of Wales on St. Stephen's 
Day. It is about seven inches square, and has a glass window 
at one end. Into this box a wren was placed, and it was hoisted 
on two long poles and carried round the town by four strong 
men, who affected to find the burden heavy. Stopping at inter- 
vals, they sang, — 

" Oh, where are you going ?" says milder to melder ; 
" Oh, where are you going ?" says the younger to the elder. 
"Oh, I cannot tell," says Festel to Fose ; 
n ^e're going to the woods," says John the Ked Nose. 
We're going, etc. 

" Oh, what will you do there?" says milder to melder; 
" Oh, what will you do there ?" says the younger to the elder. 
" Oh, I do not know," says Festel to Fose ; 
" To shoot the cutty wren," says John the Red Nose. 
To shoot, etc. 

And so on for eight more verses, taking the form of question and 
answer, as in the ballad of " Cock Eobin," and describing the 
method of shooting the wren, cutting it up, and finally boiling it. 

64 



1010 CURIOSITIES OF 



Yeomen of the Guard, familiarly known as Beef-Eaters. 
A corps organized by Henry YII. for his own protection on the 
day of his coronation, October 30, 1485, which has served as a 
body-guard of the English sovereign ever since. In the reign 
of Henry VIII. there were two hundred of them, half of whom 
were mounted. In that reign they acquired the name of Beef- 
eaters, — a name generally supposed to be a corruption of hvffe- 
tiers, but the etymology is doubtful, as the Yeomen never had 
charge of the royal buffet or sideboard. Preston (" History of 
the Yeomen of the Guard," 1885) suggests that they may have 
received their name from a bird called beef-eater, wJtiose strong 
thick bill bore some resemblance lo their partisans. Indeed, 
the Yeomen were often referred to as " billmen" because they 
carried a weapon with a hook like the beak or bill of a bird. 

At the Eestoration their number was reduced to one hundred. 
The corps was reorganized in 1861, purchases of officers' com- 
missions abohshed, and future vacancies directed to be given to 
officers of the army of long and good service. The captain is 
always a peer, and goes out with each ministry ; the lieutenant 
must be, or have been, a colonel or lieutenant-colonel in the 
army ; the ensign and clerk of the cheque, lieutenant-colonels 
or majors ; the exons, or exempts, captains ; and the privates, 
non-commissioned officers not below the rank of sergeant. 

The "Yeomen Warders of the Tower," whose duty it is to 
keep watch over the historic Tower of London, are honorary 
members of the Yeomen of the Guard. They are appointed, 
forty in number, by the constable, and are recruited from the 
retired non-commissioned officers of the army. 

The ceremony of closing the Tower gates every night is full 
of antique quaintness. A few minutes before the clock strikes 
the hour of eleven — on Tuesdays and Fridays, twelve — the Head 
Warden or Yeoman Porter appears at the Main Guard and ap- 
plies for the " Escort for the Keys." This consists of a party 
of six privates, commanded by a sergeant, who accompany the 
porter to the outer gate and assist him to close it. Having 
locked both the gate and the wicket, the Yeoman Porter re- 
turns, bearing the keys, and followed by the escort. As he 
passes the sentries, on his way back to the Main Guard, each of 
them challenges, and in reply to " Who goes there ?" is answered, 
" The keys." The sentry rejoins, " What keys ?" to which the 
reply is given, " The Queen's keys," and the escort passes on till 
it arrives at the Main Guard, which now turns out, and after the 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 



1011 



same questions and answers as to the "keys" and what keys 
they are, the officer opens the ranks, and presents arms to " the 
Queen's keys," which are then carried by the Yeoman Porter to 
the Governor's house and placed in his office. All this ceremony 
and precaution may seem superfluous, but it is a remarkable 
fact, and not less so from the late Duke of Wellington having 
caused much inquiry to be made on the subject, at the Home 
Office and elsewhere, that there has never been any riot or serious 
disturbance in London without some plan being laid by the ring- 
leaders for the attack and seizure of the Tower. 

An annual inspection of the Yeomen of the Guard is held in 
the gardens of St. James's Palace on June 14. The friends and 
relatives of the Yeomen, as 

well as persons of distinction, , J 

are privileged to be present. „ | | fj j 

Here is the Daily G-raphic's \\ jj J' Jl\ j# | 

account of the inspection ,| j ' ' '' i 1 vJi^ 1X1 (Hfct _ il 
of 1895: " Field-Marshal Sir 
Donald Stewart was received 
on his arrival at midday by 
Lord Kensington, captain of 
the Yeomen of the Guard, 
and was conducted to the 
parade ground. Sir Donald 
Stewart's inspection of the 
men was one which was more 
than merely formal, for as he 
made his way down the lines 
there was not one of the vet- 
erans with whom he did not 
stop for a moment to ask a 
question, to examine a medal, or to pay a kindly compliment. 
When the inspection was over the old soldiers were drawn up in 
square, and were addressed in a few well-chosen soldierly words 
by the Field-Marshal. They were the flower of the British army, 
he told them ; and he hoped that their long and brilliant ser- 
vices to their country would be an incentive to young men of the 
present day to follow their example." 

Yom Kippur (Heb., "The Day of Atonement"), also known 
as a day of prayer and fasting in the Jewish calendar, based 
upon the command in Leviticus xvi. 29-34. Falling on the tenth 
day of the month Tisri, it is the concluding ceremonial in the New 
Year observances. On Eosh Hashanah (</. i;.), or New Year's 
Day, there were praise and prayer, but no afflicting of the flesh. 
Then the fate of the pious was merely inscribed in the great book 




Annual Inspection of the Yeomen. 



1012 CURIOSITIES OF 

which lies open for changeR during ten days; but after Yom 
Kippur the register is closed and sealed, and what is written is 
written. So the greeting for the first day is " Chaihivoh Tovoh," 
the short for " May you have a good inscription," while that of 
Yom Kippur is " Chatimoh Tovoh," "a good seal." 

As the Jewish day lasts from sunset to sunset, the ceremonies 
begin on what we should call the preceding evening. 

Every family purchases a cock. The eldest male, taking it by 
the legs, swings it nine times over the heads of the others, 
praying God to transfer their sins into the body of the fowl. 
The bird is then either killed as a sacrifice or given to the 
poor. 

The last meal for twenty-four hours is taken just before the 
first dark hour. Until sunset next day not a drop of water, not 
a mouthful of food, can pass the lips of the fasters. All are 
now in readiness to start for the synagogue, which has been 
strewn with straw. The anxious mothers and wives question 
the men eagerly about the state of their souls. Have they for- 
given all transgressions against them ? If they have not, theirs 
may not be forgiven them. 

Though unprescribed in the laws, this domestic ceremony, 
which may be called the parting for the synagogue, is often a 
most harrowing and touching scene, especially among the sterner 
believers of orthodox Jewry. The mother, with tears in her 
eyes, embraces her son and beseeches him to purify his soul, and 
the wife does likewise with her husband. In the tense emotional 
excitement, with the dark, obscure dread of atonement upon 
them, the men sometimes make up quarrels they had thought 
too bitter ever to be settled. Brothers and sisters are reconciled, 
and not infrequently husbands and wives, who have separated 
in anger, rush into each other's arms in this hour. 

In the basement of the synagogue are arranged dozens of long 
narrow boxes filled with sand. Each worshipper brings with 
him a candle, sticks it in the sand, lights it, and in a brief prayer 
beseeches God to let the light of his mercy shine upon the candle 
and by making it burn long and clear indicate a long and happy 
fife for the supplicant. 

The men remove their shoes and take their places in stocking- 
feet on the floor of the synagogue. The women are usually in 
the gallery. Many of the men wear the kittel, or burial-robe of 
white trimmed with black stripes, and the talith, or white satin 
death-cap. The ceremonies commence with the Kol Midre, or 
service for the absolution of all vows, which is thrice repeated. 
Prayers and readings break the spell of it, and the Jews believe, 
as the name implies, that they are absolved from all the vows 
of the previous year, and that those made on New Year's 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 1013 

Day are satisfactory and are inscribed with a good omen for the 
twelve months. 

After the Kol Midre most of the Jews go home and sleep. 
But the more devout remain in the synagogues all night, and all 
return early in the morning, at five or six o'clock, to resume 
their devotions. The morning service is the Shachvith. It in- 
cludes the reading of the Torah, or scroll, and lasts till ten 
or eleven o'clock. The second service, from eleven till one or 
two o'clock, is the Musoph. Then comes in the afternoon 
the Minchah, which continues till the closing hour, when the 
Neeloh supersedes. This ceremony must be continued till three 
stars are out. Sometimes all the Psalms are read, but if the 
day is not yet over, the reading begins again, or some other 
book of the Bible is taken up and is painfully repeated by the 
reader till at last the stars are announced and the ram's horn 
sounds the glad tidings. The Book of Life is closed, the seal is 
affixed, the judgment is set. 

Yue-Ping (Chinese, "Moon- Cakes"), Feast of. The Chinese 
Thanksgiving, held at the full moon in the eighth month of 
their calendar. A clear sky is always eagerly prayed for, as a 
sight of the moon on this occasion is held to be of happy au- 
gury. It is a very old festival, and is chiefly commemorated by 
an abundance of good things to eat. They have no turkeys in 
China, or if they have them they prefer pigs, and hence the 
proper dish on this day is a porker of eight pounds' weight, 
roasted to a rich brownish red and seasoned with many sweet- 
smelling herbs. With this as the main dish come the moon- 
cakes, which in point of complexity and number of ingredients 
put the plum-pudding of our English sires to the blush. They 
are round, are served with a sweet sauce, and are stuffed with a 
hash of minced pork, watermelon- seeds, nuts, ginger, and spices. 
So far as their appearance goes, they are supposed to resemble 
a full moon ; but, it may be said with emphasis, the resemblance 
is a conventional one, and a Chinese convention at that. 

JSTot only are moon-cakes eaten at home, but friends and rela- 
tives pay visits to present them to one another, with many pro- 
testations of affection and with a preliminary pouring out of 
libations to the moon. It is very remarkable that a verse of 
one of the Jewish prophets should be explained by this Chinese 
custom. "The children gather wood," said the seer, "and the 
fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough to 
make cakes to the queen of heaven." 

Yule Doughs or Doos. A peculiar sort of cake made at 
Christnuis in many parts of Northern England for distribution 



1014 CURIOSITIES OF 

among the young people. They are from six to twelve inches 
long, roughly fashioned in the shape of a human figure, doubt- 
less representing the infant Jesus. Eaisins are inserted for the 
eyes and nose. There are various other cakes peculiar to the 
season, as in Cornwall, where each household makes a batch of 
currant cakes on Christmas Eve. A small portion of the dough 
in the centre of each top is pulled up, and this small head-piece 
to the cake is called "the Christmas." Each member of the 
family has his own special cake ; but every one ought to taste 
a small piece of every other person's cake. In Alnwick a cus- 
tom existed of giving sweetmeats to children at Christmas time. 
These were called Yule Babies. Ben Jonson's " Masque of 
Christmas" has a character called Baby Cake, but this is ex- 
plained to refer to the Twelfth Night cake. 

Yule- Log. The name given by the ancient Goths and Sax- 
ons to the festival of the winter solstice was Jul, or Yule. The 
latter term is still preserved by the Scotch, and obsolescently by 
the English, and it survives everywhere in English-speaking 
countries in the compound Yule-log. The etymology of the 
word is uncertain. The Greek ooXoq or louXoq, the name of a 
hymn in honor of Demeter, the Latin juUlum, " a time of re- 
joicing," and the Gothic ol or oel, a feast as well as the favorite 
liquor used at the feast, namely our ale, — all these have been 
suggested. But a more probable derivation is from the Gothic 
giul or Mul, "wheel," — the wheel being everywhere a symbol 
of the turning-point of the year, or the period when the sun made 
a revolution in his annual circuit and entered on his northern 
journey. 

Now, the burning of the Yule-log or Yule-clog, known by 
other names in Continental Europe, was an ancient Christmas 
ceremony descending from the Scandinavians, who at their feast 
of Jul used to kindle huge bonfires in honor of their god Thor. 
Similar bonfires were kindled in Europe and elsewhere at the 
summer solstice (see John the Baptist, St.), whence it is sur- 
mised that all these customs have their source in sun-worship. 

The English ceremony of bringing in and burning the Yule-log 
on Christmas Eve, which still has its local survivals, was full of 
picturesque detail. The log was a massive piece of wood, fre- 
quently the rugsjed and grotesquely marked root of an oak. It 
was drawn in triumph from its resting-place amid shouts and 
laughter, every wayfarer doffing his hat as it passed. On its 
entrance into the baronial hall the minstrels hailed it with song 
and music, or in the absence of the minstrels each member of 
the family sat upon it in turn and sang a Yule song. A favor- 
ite Yule song began with — 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 1015 

Welcome be thou, heavenly King, 
Welcome born on this morning, 
Welcome for whom we shall sing 
Welcome Yule. 

Meanwhile Yule doughs (q. v.) were eaten and washed down 
with draughts from the mighty wassail bowls (see Wassail) and 
tankards of spiced ale. 

The sport of " Dun in the Mire" was often played ere the 
final conflagration. The Yule stock, drawn into the middle of 
the floor, became "Dun, the cart-horse," for the nonce; the cry 
was raised that he had stuck in the mire : 

If thou art Dun, we'll draw thee from the mire, 
Of this (save reverence) love, wherein thou stick'st 
Up to the ears. 

Two of the company, with or without ropes, advanced to 
extricate Dun ; after various real and feigned exertions, they 
called for more help, until all present were mixed up in the 
rough-and-tumble exertion ; the fun rose from the horse-play of 
the revellers, falling about, and contriving to roll or drop the log 
on each other's toes ; this was kept up with hearty enjoyment 
until, the fun being exhausted, " Dun was drawn out." 

In " Eomeo and Juliet," Mercutio observes to Eomeo, — 

Tut, Dun's the mouse, the constable's own ward : 
If thou art Dun, we'll draw thee from the mire. 

After the endless amusement afforded by the Yule games, the 
log was kindled to cheer upHhe hearts of the revellers and to 
defy the cold. The flring was to be accomplished, according to 
traditional usage, from a portion of the charred Yule block care- 
fully preserved from the preceding Christmas for this purpose : 

Kindle the Christmas brand, and then 

Till sunneset let it burne ; 
Which quencht, then lay it up agen, 

Till Christmas next returne. 

Part must be kept, wherewith to teend 

The Christmas log next yeare ; 
And where 'tis safely kept, the fiend 

Can do no mischief there. 

It was believed that the preservation of last year's Christmas 
log was a most effectual security to the house against fire. We 
are further informed that it was regarded as a sign of very bad 
luck if a squinting person entered the hall when the log was 



1016 CURIOSITIES OF 

burning, and a similarly evil omen was exhibited in the arrival 
of a barefooted person, and, above all, of a flat-footed woman. 
As an accompaniment to the Yule-log, a candle of monstrous 
size, called the Yule Candle, or Christmas Candle, shed its light 
on the festive board during the evening. Brand, in his " Popu- 
lar Antiquities," states that in the buttery of St. John's College, 
Oxford, an ancient candle-socket of stone still remains, orna- 
mented with the figure of the Holy Lamb. It was formerly 
used for holding the Christmas Candle, which during the twelve 
nights of the Christmas festival was burned on the high table at 
supper. 

In Provence the analogue of the Yule-log of the Northern 
nations is called the Cachofio. Every household has one, which 
is burned from Christmas Eve to January 1. Naturally it must 
be a good stout log some five feet long. The head of the family — 
grandfather, father, or eldest son — must make the first incision in 
the tree, which is usually an olive or an almond, though any fruit- 
bearing tree will do. The log when cut is borne home in triumph 
on the shoulders of the two sturdiest members of the family, 
the father and the eldest son, or the husband and wife, while the 
children caracole around them or lend little helping hands. 
Already, because destined for the Christmas rites, it has acquired 
a sacrosanct character, so that it would resent any unduly rough 
handling or disrespect. But when treated reverently and burned 
with fitting rites, the log brings a blessing on the household, and 
its very ashes are potent for good. 

Formerly when the Counts of Provence lived and ruled in Aix 
it was customary for the magistrates of the city to carry in sol- 
emn procession a huge cachofio to the palace and formally pre- 
sent it to the sovereign or his seneschal as a free-will and good- 
will offering. And after the ceremony of presentation the city 
fathers were served with a collation in the great hall of the 
palace and enabled to drink the health of the count in his own 
good wine. 

The Servians also have their Yule-log. On Christmas Eve the 
father of the family goes to the wood and cuts down a straight 
and well-grown young oak. He brings it in, saying, " Good- 
evening, and a merry Christmas ;" to which all present reply, 
" May God grant both to thee, and mayest thou have riches and 
honor." Then they throw over him grains of corn. Presently 
the young tree is placed upon the coals, where it remains until 
the morning, which is saluted by repeated pistol-shots. When a 
neighbor pays a visit he first throws grains of wheat through 
the open door, crying, " Christ is born !" Those upon whom the 
grain has fallen answer, " He is born indeed !" The visitor then 
enters, and, striking the log with a piece of iron, adds, " For as 



POPULAR CUSTOMS. 1017 

many sparks as come out of you, let there be as many oxen, 
horses, sheep, goats, pigs, and bee-hives." At length the mis- 
tress of the house throws a veil over all the assembled guests, 
and the remains of the log are carried out into the orchard. 
The ashes are retained, as they are believed to bring good luck. 



z. 

Zemzem. (So called, by obvious onomatopoeia, from the 
murmuring sound of its waters.) A holy well in Mecca, one of 
the most sacred objects within the precincts of the Kaaba. (See 
Mecca.) According to Moslem legend, when Hagar and the 
infant Ishmael were abandoned by Abraham for domestic 
reasons which every family man must approve, they wandered 
into the valley of Mecca, or rather where Mecca was afterwards 
founded, and Hagar, oppressed by the heat, began to search for 
water to relieve the thirst from which she and the child were 
suffering. She ran backward and forward between the hills of 
Safa and Marwa, seeking in vain, but, returning to the spot 
where she had left the infant, found that Ishmael had himself 
discovered the spring they both needed by a simple expedient, 
familiar to babies of all nations and all periods. Kicking out 
against the ground, his infantile efforts had laid bare one of those 
springs which in Arabia are frequently concealed by a light 
layer of sand. This was the well Zemzem. 

It is certain that Zemzem, like the Kaaba, is one of the most 
ancient of the antiquities of Arabia. Both were connected with 
the oldest rites of the pagan Arabs, and existed in very much 
their present form and were applied to very much their present 
uses before the time of Mohammed. It was the Prophet's grand- 
father who reopened the well, of the position of which he had 
been informed in a dream, whilst he was trying to devise some 
convenient means of fulfilling his special duty and privilege of 
supplying water to the tribes who flocked annually to worship 
at the Kaaba. Digging in the appointed spot, he found the 
remains of an ancient piece of masonry enclosing a copious and 
never-failing spring, which was at once accepted as the tradi- 
tional well of Hagar. It is probable at least that the masonry 
dated from the old days of the mercantile prosperity of Mecca, 
perhaps even from pre-Christian times. Ever since this redis- 
covery of the well, Zemzem has held a prominent place among 
the holy things of the Arabian temple. The millions of pil- 
grims to Mecca do not leave the " Haram esh-Sherif " without 
washing in, or at least tasting, the water of the well Zemzem, 



1018 CURIOSITIES OF POPULAR CUSTOMS. 

and most of them carry away a flask of the holy water. No 
more valuable present can be offered by a returned hajji to his 
friends than a bottle of this miraculous, though admittedly 
brackish, fluid. Its properties are quite unique in the eyes of 
the faitbful. It can cure diseases ; sprinkled on grave-clothes it 
produces the most salutary results in the future state of the 
deceased ; while a single sip is the best cordial that a host can 
off'er to his most distinguished guest. One famous traditionist, 
whose memorj^ was proverbial, ascribed his retentive powers 
entirely to the copious draughts he had taken of the water of 
Zemzem, which Sale gravely remarks appears to be really as 
eflicacious in its own province as the spring of Helicon has 
proved to the inspiration of poets. But from what one knows of 
the sanitary methods of the East there is nothing surprising in 
the discovery that the well of Zemzem is as foul as a good many 
other saintly springs. The water in the fountains of mosques 
never strikes the eye or nose with any very pleasing impression, 
and Zemzem is in the midst of a thicldy built city, where drain- 
age is of a peculiarly primitive description, and the well is almost 
necessarily affected by the drainings from the countless carcasses 
of beasts which ai-e annually sacrificed by the pilgrims in the 
neighboring valley of Mina. 



THE END. 



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